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I  UMVLRSITY  OF 
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THE  LIBRARY 

OF ■ 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

IN  MEMORY  OF 

James  J.  McBride 

PRESENTED  BY 

Margaret  McBride 


0 


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Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arcinive 

in  2007  witii  funding  from 

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Books  in 
General 


BOOKS  OF  ESSAYS 

THE  MERRY-GO-ROUND 
by  Carl  Van  Vechten 

MUSIC  AND  BAD  MANNERS 
by  Carl  Fan  Vechten 

A  BOOK  OF  CALUMNY 
by  H.  L.  Mencken 

A  BOOK  OF  PREFACES 
by  H.  L.  Mencken 

PREJUDICES:  First  Series 
by  H.  L.  Mencken 

PAVANNES  AND  DIVISIONS 
by  Ezra  Pound 

ALFRED  A.  KNOPF,  Publisher 

Books  in   General 
By  Solomon  Eagle 


Alfred-  A  -Knopf 


New  York 


Mcmxix 


COPYRIGHT,  1919,  BY 
ALFRED  A.  KNOPF,  Inc. 


PRINTED   IM   THI   UNITED   STATES   OT  AMBUOA 


ARTURO  WAUGH 


Preface 

THESE  papers  are  selections  from  a  series 
contributed  weekly,  without  intermission, 
to  the  New  Statesman  since  April  19 13.  I 
do  not  feel  that  the  responsibility  for  reprinting 
them  rests  on  my  shoulders;  I  trust  that  where  it 
does  rest  it  will  rest  lightly.  I  shall  have  done  all 
I  hope  to  do  if  I  have  produced  the  sort  of  book 
that  one  reads  in,  without  tedium,  for  ten  minutes 
before  one  goes  to  sleep. 

The  pseudonym  "  Solomon  Eagle,"  I  may  ex- 
plain, is  not  intended  to  posit  any  claim  to  unusual 
wisdom  or  abnormally  keen  sight.  The  original 
bearer  of  the  name  was  a  poor  maniac  who,  during 
the  Great  Plague  of  London,  used  to  run  naked 
through  the  street,  with  a  pan  of  coals  of  fire  on  his 
head,  crying  "  Repent,  repent." 

S.  E. 


Contents 

Who's  Who,  13 

Political  Songs,  19 

An  Oriental  on  Albert  the  Good,  25 

Epigrams,  31 

An  Eminent  Baconian,  37 

The  Beauties  of  Badness,  42 

More  Badness,  54 

A  Mystery  Solved,  58 

Carrying  the  Alliance  too  far,  60 

May  19 14,  63 

May  19 14:     The  Leipzig  Exhibition,  69 

The  Mantle  of  Sir  Edwin,  75 

"  The  Cattle  of  the  Boyne,"  81 

August  1914,  83 

Mrs.  Barclay  sees  it  through,  88 

A  Topic  of  Standing  Interest,  94 

Was  Cromwell  an  Alligator?,  99 

The  Depressed  Philanthropist,  105 

A  Polyphloisboisterous  Critic,  1 1 1 

"Another  Century,  and  then  .  .  .,"  115 

Herrick,   121 

The  Muse  in  Liquor,  127 

£5  Misspent,  133 

Shakespeare's   Women   and    Mr.    George    Moore, 

137 
Moving  a  Library,  143 


Contents 

Table-Talk  and  Jest  Books,  146 

Stephen  Phillips,   150 

Gray  and  Horace  Walpole,  155 

A  Horrible  Bookseller,  161 

The  Troubles  of  a  Catholic,  166 

The  Bible  as  Raw  Material,  168 

How  to  avoid  Bad  English,  172 

Woodland  Creatures,  177 

Other  People's  Books,  183 

Peacock,  187 

Wordsworth's  Personal  Dullness,  189 

Henry  James's  Obscurity,  195 

The  "  Ring  "  in  the  Bookselling  Trade,  201 

Music-Hall  Songs,  207 

More  Music-Hall  Songs,  213 

Utopias,  218 

Charles  II  in  English  Verse,  224 

The  Most  Durable  Books,  229 

The  Worst  Style  in  the  World,  234 

The  Reconstruction  of  Orthography,  240 

Mr.  James  Joyce,  245 

Tennessee,  251 

Sir  William  Watson  and  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  254 

Stranded,  259 

Mr.  Ralph  Hodgson,  264 

Double  Misprints,  268 

The  History  of  Earl  Pumbles,  270 

On  Destroying  Books,  276 


Who's  Who 

WORKS  of  reference  are  extremely  useful; 
but  they  resemble  Virgil's  Hell  in  that 
they  are  easy  things  to  get  into  and  very 
difficult  to  escape  from.  Take  the  Encyclopaedia. 
I  imagine  that  my  experience  with  it  is  universal. 
I  have  only  to  dip  my  toe  into  this  tempting  morass 
and  down  I  am  sucked,  limbs,  trunk  and  all,  to  re- 
main embedded  until  sleep  or  a  visitor  comes  to  haul 
me  out.  A  man  will  read  things  in  the  Encyclo- 
paedia that  he  would  never  dream  of  looking  at  else- 
where —  things  in  which  normally  he  does  not  take 
the  faintest  interest.  One  may  take  up  a  volume 
after  lunch  in  order  to  discover  the  parentage  of 
Thomas  Nashe ;  but  one  does  not  put  it  down  when 
one  has  satisfied  one's  curiosity.  One  turns  over  a 
few  pages  and  becomes  absorbed  in  the  career  of 
Napoleon.  Thence  one  drifts  to  the  article  on 
Napier,  which  sends  one  to  that  on  Logarithms  in 
another  volume;  and  when  night  closes  in  and  (as 
we  used  to  construe  it)  sleep  brings  rest  to  weary 
mortals,  one  still  sits  in  one's  chair,  bending  heavy- 
eyed  over  the  book,  with  a  dozen  pressing  duties  left 
undone  and  the  last  post  missed.  By  that  time  one 
has  reached,  perhaps,  the  abnormally  complex  dia- 
grams which  illustrate  the  article  on  Metaphysico- 

13 


Books  in  General 

theologico-cosmolo-nigology  —  of  which  science,  the 
reader  will  remember,  Voltaire  was  the  father  and 
Herr  Doktor  Pangloss  the  first  professor. 

Who's  Who  takes  me  in  the  same  way.  Ordi- 
narily I  have  no  particular  thirst  for  it.  I  should 
not  dream  of  carrying  it  about  in  my  waistcoat 
pocket  for  perusal  on  the  Underground  Railway. 
But  once  I  have  allowed  myself  to  open  it,  I  am  a 
slave  to  it  for  hours.  This  has  just  happened  to 
me  with  the  new  volume,  upon  which  I  have  wasted 
a  valuable  afternoon.  I  began  by  looking  up  a 
man's  address;  I  then  read  the  compressed  life- 
story  of  the  gentleman  next  above  him  (a  major- 
general),  wondering,  somewhat  idly,  whether  they 
read  of  each  other's  performances  and  whether 
either  of  them  resented  the  possession  by  the  other 
of  a  similar,  and  unusual,  surname.  Then  I  was  in 
the  thick  of  it.  There  was  nothing  especially  ex- 
citing about  most  of  the  information  that  met  my 
eye.  Generally  speaking,  the  biographies  were  of 
people  of  whom  I  had  never  previously  heard,  and 
whose  doubtlessly  reputable  achievements  had  been 
recorded  in  spheres  as  unfamiliar  to  me  as  the  dark 
side  of  the  moon.  What  can  it  mean  to  me  that 
Mr.  J.  Fitztimmins  Gubb  worked  for  five  years 
under  Schmitt  at  Magdeburg  and  is  now  demon- 
strator in  Comparative  Obstetrics  at  the  Robson  In- 
stitute? Or  that  the  Bishop  of  the  Cocos  Islands 
has  been  five  times  married  and  was  educated  at 
14 


Who's  Who 

King  Edward  VI  Grammar  School,  Chipping  Ches- 
ter, and  Pembroke  College,  Oxford?  Yet  I  read  of 
some  six  or  seven  hundred  such,  and  found  it  as 
difficult  to  refrain  from  "  Just  one  more  "  as  would 
a  wealthy  dipsomaniac  just  parting  from  an  old 
friend  in  a  public-house  at  five  minutes  before  clos- 
ing time.  I  cannot  easily  account  for  the  attraction. 
Something,  I  suppose,  may  be  put  down  to  the  fact 
that  character  comes  out  in  a  man's  account,  however 
bald,  of  himself;  and  that  the  Who's  Who  auto- 
biographies, in  spite  of  their  compression,  exhibit 
many  and  diverse  interesting  traits  of  character. 
But  mainly,  I  think,  it  must  be  that  we  most  of  us 
have  collector's  mania  in  some  form  or  another, 
and  that  one  cannot  resist  the  temptation  of  collect- 
ing facts  even  when  they  are  so  irrelevant  and  of 
so  little  importance  to  one  that  they  slip  through 
one's  fingers  as  soon  as  one  has  gathered  them. 
For  I  am  sure  that  I  do  not  know  now  whether  I 
have  got  the  number  of  the  Bishop's  wives  right,  or 
the  sites  of  his  education,  or  even  the  name  of  his 
diocese. 

I  suppose  that  no  one  ever  tells  an  untruth  in 
Who's  Who.  There  is  not  much  scope  for  it, 
though  it  is  conceivable  that  there  may  have  been 
exaggerations  of  the  truth.  The  compilers  are  ex- 
tremely capable;  and  the  contributors  seem  to  be 
as  uniform  in  their  veracity  as  they  are  various  in 
their  loquacity.     Only  in  rare  circumstances  could 

15 


Books  in  General 

any  one  hope  to  Impose  on  Who's  Who  without  very 
rapid  detection.  An  opportunity  of  that  nature  did 
once  occur  to  me.  There  is  a  compilation  called  the 
American  Who's  Who,  published  (if  I  remember 
correctly)  in  Chicago.  By  some  curious  accident, 
which  I  have  never  been  able  to  explain,  its  con- 
ductors got  hold  of  my  name  —  I  don't  mean 
"  Eagle,"  but  the  other.  By  some  accident  more 
curious  still  they  got  the  impression  that  I  was  an 
American  settled  in  London;  and  with  admirable 
enterprise  they  sent  me,  for  two  or  three  years  in 
succession,  yellow  forms  on  which  I  was  requested 
to  inscribe  my  age,  antecedents,  and  accomplish- 
ments. Each  year  I  was  dazzled  by  the  idea  of  a 
joke  which,  I  felt,  would  immensely  amuse  me,  and 
which  could  (so  the  Devil  argued)  hurt  nobody. 
On  each  occasion  I  filled  the  form  exhaustively. 
I  put  down  my  name  and  address  correctly;  but  be- 
yond that  not  a  word  of  truth  did  I  tell.  I  in- 
vented for  myself  a  career,  a  career  not  imposing 
enough  to  arouse  suspicions,  but  far  more  pictur- 
esque than  my  actual  career  has  been.     I  described 

my  parents  as  being  Homer  E.  and  Anna  P. 

,  of  St.  Louis,  Mo.  I  copied  out  of  an  Amer- 
ican minor  poet's  autobiographical  preface  a  list  of 
academies  at  which  I  had  been  educated;  and  then 
I  launched  out. 

I  had,  I  stated,  left  America  for  Europe  at  the 
age  of  nineteen.  I  had  written  (I  was  cunning 
i6 


Who's  Who 

enough  to  put  down  the  names  of  one  or  two  of 
my  actual  works)  such  and  such  books,  including 
a  Manual  (for  Schools)  on  Political  Economy  and 
a  small  brochure  on  Polycarp.  I  had  travelled  over 
four  continents;  my  recreations  were  "  all  forms  of 
sport,  especially  big-game  hunting";  I  had  gone 
through  the  Balkan  War  as  a  volunteer  with  the 
Greek  Army;  and  I  possessed  several  decorations, 
including  the  Blue  Boar  of  Rumania,  the  St.  Miguel 
and  All  Angels  of  Portugal,  and  the  fourth  class  of 
the  Turkish  Medjidie.  Notice  the  fourth  class;  no 
common  liar  would  have  thought  of  so  convinc- 
ingly modest  a  claim  as  that.  Each  year,  as  I  say, 
I  lived  laborious  days  in  the  delineation  of  an  imag- 
inary pedigree  and  a  supposititious  career.  Then 
I  broke  down.  There  was  no  risk  of  punishment 
attached,  and,  I  take  it,  small  risk  of  discovery. 
But  my  softer  self  began  telling  me  that  it  was  a 
scandalous  thing  to  hoax  foreigners;  that  the  trick 
was  unworthy  of  an  Englishman,  or,  indeed,  an 
adult  of  any  nationality,  down  to  the  most  back- 
ward of  Nicobar  Islanders;  and  that  the  only  fitting 
punishment  for  a  person  addicted  to  such  practices 
would  be  to  have  pins  put  upon  his  chair  by  his  chil- 
dren or  his  back  chalked  by  infants  in  the  street.  I 
weakened  and  broke;  sentiment  overcame  reason; 
my  heart  gained  the  victory  over  my  head.  And 
each  year,  with  reluctant  deliberation,  I  tore  up  the 
well-filled  sheet  and  destroyed  again  my  other  self, 
my  American  self,  the  romantic  self  who  had  done 

17 


Books  in  General 

the  things  I  had  never  done,  who  had  stalked  the 
bear  in  the  snowy  fastnesses  of  the  Caucasus  and  won 
the  gratitude  of  exotic  potentates.  The  forms  have 
stopped  coming  now;  but  the  memory  of  my  vision 
still  burns  with  a  melancholy  yet  tender  brightness; 

and  those  mythical  progenitors,  Homer  E. and 

Anna  P. ,  are  to  me  all  that  his  Dream  Children 

were  to  Charles  Lamb. 


i8 


Political  Songs 


IF  one  goes  up  a  mountain  and  surveys  all  the 
kingdoms  of  the  world  one  sees  a  good  many 
horrible  things.  Few  of  them  are  worse,  in 
their  way,  than  the  modern  political  song.  There 
have  been  bad  political  songs  in  all  ages.  Caesar's 
soldiers  used  to  sing  some  which  were  not  merely 
uninspiring  but  irrelevant,  and  Lilli  Burlero  (or 
Lillibulero)  itself  was  no  great  shakes  as  a  poem 
although  its  tune  had  a  swing.  But  there  have 
never  been  any  to  equal  in  badness  the  kind  of  songs 
that  has  been  generated  by  the  British  party  system. 
The  only  modern  politicians  who  ever  manage  to 
generate  a  good  song  are  the  Socialists.  Socialist 
song-books,  in  spite  of  their  plenitude  of  hack  phrases 
about  chains  and  freedom's  dawn,  always  have  a 
good  deal  of  tolerable  poetry  in  them.  William 
Morris's  political  songs  are  excellent,  and  some 
of  the  modern  foreign  Socialist  songs  are  really 
worthy  expressions  of  the  movement.  When  their 
words  are  not  good  their  tunes  are:  witness  the 
Internationale  and  that  stirring  Italian  labour  song 
that  is  now,  I  believe,  prohibited  by  King  Victor's 
Government.  But  the  kind  of  songs  that  our  good 
Liberals  and  Conservatives  sing  at  their  meetings 
are  gruesome. 

19 


Books  in  General 

I  hold  in  my  hand  —  as  the  saying  goes  —  the 
Liberal  Song  Sheet  now  being  used  at  big  party 
meetings.  One  or  two  of  the  more  facetious  ditties 
show  some  ingenuity,  and  there  is  a  certain  go  about 
the  first  hne  of  "  Stamp,  stamp,  stamp  upon  Pro- 
tection ";  but  for  the  rest  the  only  song  the  writer 
of  which  would  not  get  a  birching  in  any  properly 
constituted  society  is  Ebenezer  Elliott's  God  Save 
the  People,  which  is  generations  old.  "  Let  who 
will  make  a  nation's  laws  as  long  as  I  make  its 
songs,"  said  some  writer.  One  might  add:  "  Let 
who  will  make  a  nation's  songs  as  long  as  they  are 
not  done  by  the  people  who  make  its  laws."  Cau- 
cus-provided laws  may  be  all  right,  but  caucus-pro- 
vided songs,  written  by  party  agents  and  under- 
secretaries, are  not  successful. 

The  chief  characteristic  of  the  Liberal  songs,  apart 
from  their  metrical  and  linguistic  peculiarities,  is 
their  insistence  upon  incongruous  military  image. 
Imagine  Mr.  Asquith  donning  bright  armour  and 
taking  part  in  the  incidents  depicted  in  these  verses 
—  to  the  tune  of  fVho  will  o'er  the  Downs? 

Our  leaders,  tried  and  trusted  men. 

Still  love  the  ancient  faith. 
To  Freedom  and  to  Conscience  true 

In  danger  and  in  death. 
And  they  have  donned  their  armour  bright. 

Their  courage  all  aglow, 
20 


Political  Songs 

To  lead  the  toilers  of  the  land 
Against  the  Tory  foe. 

'For  years  we've  suffered  pain  and  loss, 

By  privilege  oppressed; 
Our  birthright  has  been  filched  from  us 

And  left  us  sore  distress' d. 
But  now  our  leaders  —  trusted,  tried  — 

Are  keen  to  strike  a  blow, 
And  wrest  our  stolen  acres  from 

The  proud,  disdainful  foe. 

It  is  not  my  business  to  discuss  the  justness  of 
the  judgments  here  implied,  but  what  on  earth  is 
the  point  of  suggesting  that  Mr.  Asquith,  Mr. 
George,  Mr.  Lulu  Harcourt,  Lord  Haldane,  and 
so  on,  are  true  "  in  danger  and  in  death  "  ?  They 
may  have  come  unscathed  through  the  fire  of  Suffra- 
gette dog-whips,  but  nobody  calls  them  to  die  for 
disestablishment.  There  is  here  an  utter  lack  of 
reality,  a  lack  that  must  prevent  these  songs  from 
moving  anybody  to  action,  as  good  songs  should  do. 
They  are  as  conventionally  false  as  the  cheapest  kind 
of  leading  article. 

Here   are   some   more   extracts   from   the   same 
source : 

JVe  defend  the  right  we  won  in  ages  past; 

We  demand  the  measures  by  the  Commons  passed. 

Let  no  Lords  presume  to  wreck  the  work  at  last, 

21 


Books  in  General 

For  we  go  marching  on. 
Freedom  for  our  trade  and  nation 
From  all  insolent  vexation^ 
For  democracy' s  salvation 

We  all  go  marching  on. 

Peers  and  Tories  may  to  wreck  the  work  unite, 
Britain's  sons  for  Britain's  freedom  still  shall  fight; 
None  shall  hinder  us  till  triumph  is  in  sight, 
As  we  go  marching  on. 

Then  up  to  the  sky  with  your  Hip-hip-Hooray! 
For  the  unbeaten  leader,  who  leads  us  to-day, 
For  AsQUlTH  —  to-day,  after  long,  weary  years. 
Our  victorious  Captain  o'er  Tories  and  Peers. 
Then  cheer  with  a  will  for  the  great  deed  is  done; 
Attacking  the  Veto,  we've  fought  and  we've  won; 
Henceforward  these  islands  of  ours  are  to  he 
Not  the  Land  of  the  Peers  but  the  Land  of  the  Free. 

Long,  long  in  shameful  slavery 
The  emerald  isle  hath  lain. 
The  victim  of  past  knavery. 

And  Unionist  disdain. 
But  Freedom's  day  is  coming  — 
See  how  the  foemen  flee! 
Home  Rule  is  just 
And  come  it  must 
To  set  old  Ireland  free/ 


22 


Political  Songs 

One  blow  will  end  the  matter! 
Strike,  strike  it  with  a  will! 
The  enemy  we'll  scatter 

And  quickly  pass  our  Bill. 

Our  leaders  are  determined, 

True  followers  are  we, 

Our  arms  are  strong 

To  right  the  wrong 

And  set  old  Ireland  free. 

A  curious  thing  is  that  almost  universally  in  these 
songs  the  virtues  and  actions  of  the  party  leaders 
get  almost  as  much  attention  as  the  political  ques- 
tions at  issue.     This  is  the  mark  of  the  caucus. 

It  is  a  very  difficult  thing  to  write  a  good  propo- 
gandist  song  at  all.  A  first-rate  tune  will  often 
cover  up  the  most  prosaic  words,  but  generally  speak- 
ing political  songs  split  on  the  rock  of  the  specific. 
It  is  the  greatest  mistake  to  expect  to  stir  people 
with  verses  dealing  with  a  particular  Bill.  The 
spirit  of  freedom,  the  spirit  of  revolt,  the  passion 
of  love,  or  the  passion  of  hate,  may  make  good 
songs,  but  it  is  a  hopeless  task  to  try  to  make  poetry 
out  of  the  taxation  of  land  values  or  an  import  duty 
on  corn.  A  good  Socialist  song  may  deal  with 
brotherhood  or  service,  but  it  cannot  deal  with  "  the 
nationalization  of  the  means  of  production,  distribu- 
tion, or  exchange."  One  should  avoid  the  kind  of 
concrete  details  that  produce  a  sense  of  anti-climax, 

23 


Books  in  General 

and  the  kind  of  personalities  that  sound  false.  The 
spirit  of  Liberty  may  appropriately  be  depicted  in 
a  helmet,  but  it  is  silly  to  conjure  up  a  picture  of 
Mr.  Asquith  with  a  suit  of  armour  over  his  frock- 
coat.  Even  the  fact  that  a  thing  is  glaringly  true 
does  not  necessarily  make  it  suitable  for  metrical 
statement.  It  is  true  that  there  is  an  insufficient 
supply  of  sanatoria  and  that  the  thought  profoundly 
moves  many  people.  But  a  song  emphasizing  the 
fact  must  be  a  failure.  Modern  political  song- 
writers fail  ( I )  because  they  are  usually  people  who 
cannot  write  verse  at  all,  (2)  because  they  try  to 
make  their  songs  like  extra-rhetorical  speeches  or 
articles.  Probably  the  next  Liberal  song  will  deal 
with  the  ravages  of  pheasants. 


^4 


An  Oriental  on  Albert  the 
Good 

THE  award  of  the  Nobel  Prize  to  Mr.  Ra- 
bindranath  Tagore  Is  generally  approved. 
I  do  not  entirely  agree  with  those  who  think 
that  Mr.  Tagore's  poems  are  masterpieces  in  Eng- 
lish; for  I  find  his  English  poetical  prose  monoton- 
ous and  without  rhythmical  beauty,  although,  in  a 
sense,  immaculate.  But  those  who  know  the  Indian 
originals  say  that  they  are  really  great,  and  that 
they  have  got  a  hold  on  the  general  population  un- 
precedented for  centuries  past. 

I  have  just  acquired  a  book  by  an  Indian  poet 
who  was  not  so  wise  in  his  choice  of  subjects  as  is 
Mr.  Tagore.  The  book  is  an  English  version 
(made  in  1864  by  the  tutor  of  Sir  J.  Jeejeebhoy's 
sons,  and  published  by  the  Bombay  Education  So- 
ciety) of  an  Epic  on  the  Prince  Consort  by  the 
Parsee  poet  "  Munsookh."  The  poem  is  enliven- 
ing if  not  inspiring. 

It  opens  with  the  usual  Oriental  invocation  to 
Heaven,  ending  "  With  that  remembrance  alone  will 
I  fill  the  cup  of  my  heart  and  sing  new  and  enter- 
taining stories."  It  then  plunges  straight  in  medias 
res  with  a  first  canto,  "  On  the  birth  of  Prince  Al- 

25 


Books  in  General 

bert,  his  education  and  arrival  at  mature  years ;  and 
his  wish  to  marry  Victoria." 

! 

"  There  is  a  country  of  the  world  called  Germany, 
the  eminence  of  which  is  known  everywhere.  In 
its  interior  is  a  large  district  called  the  Dukedom 
of  Gotha,  about  thirty-seven  miles  in  area,  and  con- 
taining about  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  in- 
habitants. The  air  of  this  district  is  pleasant,  dry, 
and  cool ;  and  the  water  refreshing  and  pure.  The 
land  is  good  and  very  fertile,  and  every  article  of 
food  and  clothing  is  cheap  there.  In  its  neighbour- 
hood is  the  city  of  Coburg,  where  the  richest  bless- 
ings of  Providence  display  themselves,  near  which 
flows  the  river  Itz,  and  where  is  a  magnificent  ducal 
castle,  having  the  appropriate  name  of  Rosina,  with 
a  garden  entirely  surrounding  it.  Here  the  birth 
of  Albert  took  place." 

Prince  Albert  grew  up  wise  and  studious,  and 
at  last  his  preceptor  said  to  him :  "  My  accom- 
plished pupil,  this  is  the  one  hope  of  my  soul,  that 
thou  make  a  hearty  effort  to  be  united  to  the  worthy 
heiress  of  the  Kingdom  of  England,  and  if  thou 
do  this,  thou  wilt  not  be  disappointed.  .  .  .  Put  in 
action  therefore  the  effective  dagger  of  contrivance ; 
engraft  speedily  the  plant  of  love  .  .  .  lose  not 
thy  time,  for  if  thou  do  thou  wilt  be  considered  a 
fool." 

Queen  Victoria's  portrait  was  sent  to  Albert,  the 
26 


An  Oriental  on  Albert  the  Good 

bearer  telling  him  that  he  was  searching  the  world 
for  a  worthy,  loving,  and  religious  prince.  "  Thou 
hast  administered  the  medicine  for  my  secret  pain," 
was  the  reply,  and  the  Prince  wrote  a  letter  acknowl- 
edging the  present.  "  When  I  would  write  thee  a 
letter,"  he  said,  "  the  water  of  my  eyes  flows  from 
my  pen  instead  of  the  black  ink.  ...  In  my  feeling 
of  love  for  thee  I  am  mad :  I  am  a  moth  flying  around 
a  candle.  .  .  .  Though  I  swim  always  in  a  flood 
of  tears,  my  body  is  burning  to  a  cinder."  When 
Victoria's  mother  heard  about  this  she  was  glad, 
but  said  that  "  the  hearts  of  the  English  people  are 
intoxicated  with  haughtiness ;  they  despise  a  stranger 
and  a  foreigner  .  .  .  nor  will  they  consider  it  hon- 
ourable that  thou  should  be  united  in  love  to  a  child 
of  Germany."  Various  letters  passed,  but  Albert's 
father  was  astonished  at  his  rashness.  "  Foolish 
boy,  heretofore  engrossed  in  eating,  drinking,  and 
learning.  Where  didst  thou  get  this  information 
and  these  notions?  ...  A  nation  proud  and 
haughty  like  the  English  will  think  thee  thoroughly 
mad."  But  letters  from  England  convinced  the 
Duke;  he  admonished  his  son  as  to  his  future  be- 
haviour; and  the  party  sailed  for  the  port  of  London, 
where  "  Victoria  immediately  went  upon  the  ter- 
race." The  lovers  met  and  sang,  and  the  Prince  re- 
turned home  to  complete  his  studies.  "  A  little  time 
after  this  occurrence  the  Queen  again  remembered 
Albert;  she  caused  a  letter,  ofiicial,  and  according  to 
rule,  to  be  written  to  his  father." 

27 


Books  in  General 

"  Albert's  father  prepared  himself  at  once,  taking 
necessary  provisions,  furniture,  and  money.  Hav- 
ing sat  in  a  boat  Prince  Albert  went  forward  accom- 
panied by  his  family.  The  gallant  vessel  floated 
down  the  stream,  and  did  not  leave  her  track  on  the 
way.  From  a  distance  she  appeared  like  an  alli- 
gator, or  like  the  moon  of  the  second  day  sailing 
through  the  heavens,  or  like  a  tree  growing  in  the 
midst  of  deep  waters,  casting  its  shadows  as  it  moved 
in  a  hundred  directions;  or  she  was  like  a  horse  leap- 
ing without  feet,  and  bound  only  to  the  surface  of  the 
water,  so  swift  and  lofty  of  mien  that  the  sun  from 
afar  uttered  a  shout  of  approbation.  As  a  lover 
weeps  on  account  of  separation  from  his  beloved,  so 
the  ship  beating  her  breast,  filled  her  skirts  with 
water.  She  sometimes  appeared  from  her  motion 
tired  and  weary,  and  the  bubbles  about  her  seemed 
like  blisters  on  the  feet.  In  body  she  was  a  strong 
negress,  but  in  speed  lively;  in  her  womb  were  hun- 
dreds of  children,  yet  did  she  never  bear." 

"  Albert  thought  the  waves  were  like  an  infuri- 
ated elephant,"  but  he  arrived  safely,  and  the  mar- 
riage was  celebrated  amid  general  rejoicings. 

"  The  voice  of  triumph  arose  from  every  side  with 
guns  and  bells  and  bands  of  music;  in  every  house, 
too,  arose  the  heart-charming  sounds  of  cornets, 
flutes,  harps,  pianos,  and  singing  of  various  sorts; 
cannons  boomed  from  every  fort  —  one  making  a 
28 


An  Oriental  on  Albert  the  Good 

whirring  noise,  another  a  noise  like  thunder.  .  .  . 
So  pure  became  the  waters  of  the  Thames  that  one 
could  see  in  them  the  image  even  of  the  soul  of  his 
body.  It  was  not  a  river,  but  as  it  were  a  flower 
garden;  and  the  bodies  of  the  fishes  glittered  like 
rose-leaves.  Everywhere  were  clusters  of  variously 
decked  boats;  the  vessels  were  as  shaking  mountains, 
which  made  graceful  motions  like  peacocks  coquet- 
ting in  the  garden  of  Paradise." 

A  great  banquet  followed,  and  when  "  the  reign 
of  wine  "  was  finished  the  music  began.  "  Trom- 
bones sounded  so  impressively  that  letters  were  im- 
printed upon  the  face  of  the  air."  Then  came  the 
dancing.  "  What  shall  I  say  of  the  Mendozas  and 
Polkas  ?  for  the  philosophic  and  the  pious  lost  their 
peace  of  mind  through  them.  .  .  .  The  Polka  was 
kept  up  with  such  zest  and  excitement  that  there  was 
a  stir  among  the  angels  of  heaven.  ...  In  short, 
the  ball  was  gracefulness  itself  which  made  the  stars 
bite  their  own  bodies  with  jealousy."  The  dead  rose 
up  from  the  ground  enamoured  of  the  dancing,  and 
the  lamps  put  their  hands  over  their  eyes.  The 
festivities  over  the  royal  pair  retired  and  sang  to 
each  other. 

Next  year  a  princess  was  born,  and  all  England 
was  merry.  Other  children  followed,  and  for 
twenty  years  the  royal  pair  lived  in  happiness.  In 
1843  the  Queen  and  the  Prince  revisited  his  native 

29 


Books  in  General 

country  in  a  ship  furious  as  a  leopard,  that  broke 
through  hundreds  of  whales.  Home  awoke  tender 
thoughts  in  the  Prince.  "  Collecting  himself  he 
sang  "  a  chant  comparing  himself  to  Joseph,  and  his 
bride  to  Zuleika  —  which  indicates  a  somewhat  dif- 
ferent view  of  the  Potiphar's  wife  episode  from  that 
prevalent  in  Occidental  circles.  The  rest  of  the 
work  is  mainly  taken  up  with  the  Great  Exhibition, 
the  Prince's  death,  and  numerous  maxims  for  the  use 
of  his  son,  such  as : 

"  King  must  keep  entirely  aloof  from  several  hurt- 
ful things  as  .  .  .  chess. 

"  A  king's  country  is  like  a  beautiful  woman,  and 
the  merchants  of  that  country  are,  as  it  were,  the 
precious  jewels  and  ornaments  of  that  woman;  and 
the  more  these  jewels  and  ornaments  are,  the  more 
heart-charming  and  beautiful  she  looks." 

This  last  aphorism  is  disputable. 


30 


Epigrams 


ANY  one  who  reads  Mr.  R.  N.  Lennard's 
charming  little  anthology  of  English  epi- 
grams in  the  Oxford  Garlands  Series  will 
regret  that  the  practice  of  writing  poetical  epigrams 
has  died  out.  Until  the  Victorian  age  almost  all 
professional  writers,  as  well  as  many  amateurs,  tried 
their  hands  at  epigram.  If  you  had  anything  espe- 
cially offensive  to  say  about  any  one  —  and  especially 
about  politicians,  doctors,  and  ladies  unduly  addicted 
to  cosmetics  —  it  was  the  natural  thing  to  put  it 
into  a  couplet  or  a  quatrain.  Ministers  and  Privy 
Councillors  used  to  compose  epigrams  about  each 
other;  but  who  can  imagine  Sir  Henry  Dalziel  writ- 
ing witty  quatrains  about  Sir  Alfred  Mond,  or  vice 
versa?  Why  the  habit  has  died  out  I  don't  profess 
to  say.  There  may  be  some  significance  in  the  fact 
that  the  great  age  of  epigrams  was  the  eighteenth 
century  —  the  prose  age  par  excellence.  There  is 
probably  more  in  the  decay  of  knowledge  of  Greek 
and  Latin.  When  almost  every  educated  man  was 
familiar  with  the  Greek  Anthology  and  the  works 
of  Martial  —  whence  all  kinds  of  epigrams,  elegiac, 
amatory,  and  satirical,  descend  —  it  was  perhaps 
natural  that  the  temptation  to  continue  the  good 
work  should  be  generally  felt.     It  may  even  be  that 

31 


Books  in  General 

a  form  so  small  is  incapable  of  infinite  variety  and 
grows  exhausted.  Johnson  wrote  a  ludicrous  bur- 
lesque epigram  — 

//  the  man  who  turnips  cries 
Cry  not  when  his  father  dies, 
*Tis  a  proof  that  he  had  rather 
Have  a  turnip  than  his  father. 

—  and  there  is  undoubtedly  sound  criticism  in  it. 
After  a  certain  time  the  making  of  epigrams  may 
proceed  almost  on  a  formula.  At  all  events,  the 
decline  of  the  epigram  is  obvious.  The  well-meant 
effusions  which  the  late  Sir  Wilfrid  Lawson  used 
to  waft  across  the  benches  of  the  House  of  Commons 
were  scarcely  equal  to  the  old  level  of  our  political 
quips;  it  is  very  rarely  that  a  tolerable  metrical  epi- 
gram appears  in  the  Press;  and  the  poets  have 
almost  all  abandoned  the  habit  of  attempting  to  get 
their  thoughts  into  so  small  a  compass.  The  cus- 
tom of  composing  epigrams  for  private  albums  is 
virtually  extinct.  Every  schoolgirl  writes  in  every 
other  schoolgirl's  album  that  there  is  nothing  Origi- 
nal in  her  excepting  Original  Sin;  and  even  that 
not  very  splendid  mot  was  constructed  by  Thomas 
Campbell  nearly  a  hundred  years  ago.  The  rest 
is  silence. 

The  greater  number  of  our  epigrams  are  satiri- 
cal, and  Mr.  Lennard's  selection  is  mainly  composed 
of  these  verses  with  stings  in  their  tails.     One  of 

32 


Epigrams 

the  most  taking  of  these  is  A.  Evans's  on  a  Fat 
Man: 

When  Tadlow  walks  the  streets,  the  paviours  cry 
"  God  bless  you,  sir!  "  and  lay  their  rammers  by. 

But  that,  perhaps,  is  not  really  stinging;  if  Mr. 
Tadlow  was  good-tempered,  he  must  have  liked  it 
himself.  Good  couplets  like  these  are  few,  but  Cole- 
ridge's on  the  Swan-Song  is  one : 

Swans  sing  before  they  die  —  'twere  no  bad  thing 
Should  certain  persons  die  before  they  sing. 

The  most  brutal  epigrams  we  have  are  Byron's  on 
Castlereagh's  suicide,  after  that  statesman  had  cut 
his  throat.  These  are  not  very  good,  but  Mr.  Len- 
nard  gives  them;  and,  in  fact,  almost  every  famous 
epigram  in  the  language.  He  classifies  them  under 
headings:  "  Political,"  "  Professional  and  Trading," 
"  Amatory,"  and  so  on.  Of  the  Literary  epigrams 
one  of  the  best  is  Bishop  Stubbs's  on  two  of  his  nine- 
teenth-century contemporaries : 

Froude  informs  the  Scottish  youth 
That  parsons  do  not  care  for  truth. 
The  Reverend  Canon  Kingsley  cries 
History  is  a  pack  of  lies. 


What  cause  for  judgments  so  malign? 
A  brief  reflection  solves  the  mystery  — 


33 


Books  in  General 

Froude  believes  Kingsley  a  divine, 

And  Kingsley  goes  to  Froude  for  history. 

Lord  Erskine's  on  Scott's  Waterloo  Poem  is  good: 

On  Waterloo's  ensanguined  plain 
Lie  tens  of  thousands  of  the  slain, 
But  none,  by  sabre  or  by  shot, 
Fell  half  so  flat  as  Walter  Scott. 

Theodore  Hook's  epigram  suggesting  that  it  would 
be  impossible  to  find  a  reader  who  would  pay  for 
the  binding  of  Prometheus  Unbound  now  falls  as 
flat  as  Scott,  owing  to  the  utter  falsification  of  the 
prophecy. 

Mr.  Lennard  gives  a  fair  number  of  epitaphs, 
including  Evans's  well-known  one  on  Vanbrugh  and 
Gay's  even  better-known  one  on  himself.  But  I 
don't  think  we  have  in  English  an  epitaph  so  de- 
lightful as  that  written  for  his  own  tomb  by  the 
obscene  French  poet  Piron: 

Ci-git  Piron 

Qui  ne  fut  rien, 
Pas  meme 

Academicien. 

Landor's  "  I  strove  with  none,  for  none  was  worth 
my  strife,"  however,  could  not  be  surpassed  by  any 
serious  epitaph.  From  Landor  Mr.  Lennard  has 
naturally  had  to  draw  freely  for  his  more  serious 
34 


Epigrams 

sections.  Landor  came  nearer  than  any  English 
writers  to  rivalling  the  feats  of  the  best  Greek  epi- 
grammatists. Many  people  would  say  that  his 
Dirce  is  the  most  beautiful  epigram  in  the  language. 

Mr.  Lennard's  selection  is,  as  I  have  said,  a  very 
good  one.  The  only  old  one  I  miss  is  Richard 
Bentley's  on  German  scholarship: 

The  Germans  in  Greek 
Are  sadly  to  seek; 
Not  one  in  five  score, 
But   ninety-nine   more. 
All,  all  except  Hermann  — 
And  Hermann's  a  German. 

The  omission  is  the  stranger  in  that  Landor's  greatly 
inferior  epigram  on  Germans  is  included.  About 
the  longest  poem  admitted  is  Clough's  revised  ver- 
sion of  the  Ten  Commandments:  it  is  flat  in  places, 
but  contains  one  famous  couplet.  Only  when  he 
comes  to  the  moderns  might  Mr.  Lennard  have  cast 
his  net  wider.  Browning,  who  wrote  some  neat 
versicles,  is  unrepresented;  and  so  is  Mr.  Watson, 
who,  in  his  earlier  days,  wrote  epigrams,  some  of 
which,  if  not  masterpieces,  were  as  good  as  some 
of  Mr.  Lennard's  old  ones.  And  it  would  have 
been  worth  while  to  collect  a  few  of  the  miscellan- 
eous modern  ones  that  float  about.  There  are 
Limericks  —  and  some  Limericks  will  satisfy  the 
narrowest  definition  of  an  epigram  —  which  would 

35 


Books  in  General 

be  worth  preserving;  and  then  there  are  odd  frag- 
ments like  the  effort  alleged  to  have  been  written 
on  the  blackboard  by  a  Cheltenham  schoolgirl: 

Miss  Buss  and  Miss  Beale 
Cupid's  darts  do  not  feel. 
How  different  from  us 
Miss  Beale  and  Miss  Buss. 

Tolerable  modern  epigrams  are  so  few  that  it  would 
be  worth  while  saving  all  there  are.  Unfortunately 
the  pleasantest  personal  ones  that  one  hears  priv- 
ately, though  they  would  have  been  printed  in  a 
franker  day,  must  mostly  remain  unprinted  in  an 
age  when  direct  satire  is  considered  ungentlemanly, 
and  the  law  of  libel  is  so  easily  invoked.  I  remem- 
ber Mr.  's  epigram  on  Lady  and  Mr. 

's  on  Sir .     Mr.  Lennard  cannot  be 

expected  to  publish  these. 


36 


An  Eminent  Baconian 

AVERY  curious  chapter  in  the  history  of  the 
Bacon-Shakespeare  controversy  closes  with 
the  death  of  Sir  Edwin  Durning-Lawrence. 
Amid  all  the  strange  multitude  of  retired  judges, 
lawyers,  astrologers,  and  American  ladies  who  have 
championed  the  cause  of  Lord  Verulam  there  has 
been  no  figure  more  singular  than  that  of  this  afflu- 
ent old  ex-M.P.,  who,  after  a  lifetime  spent  in  busi- 
ness, platform  speaking,  and  the  study  of  modern 
mechanical  improvements,  suddenly  plunged  into  the 
fight  with  unprecedented  enthusiasm  and  methods  of 
argument  never  equalled  in  their  singularity.  Set- 
ting out  with  the  conviction  that  Shakespeare  could 
not  possibly  have  written  the  plays,  and  that  Bacon 
was  the  only  man  who  could  have,  Sir  Edwin  became 
so  obsessed  with  the  subject  that  he  found  proofs 
of  his  contention  everywhere,  and  gradually  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  Bacon  wrote  almost  all  the 
Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  literature  that  is  worth 
reading.  We  have  heard  of  the  devout  mystic  who 
sees  "  every  common  bush  afire  with  God":  to  Sir 
Edwin  Durning-Lawrence  every  common  bush  was 
afire  with  Bacon.  His  outlook  being  of  this  char- 
acter, it  is  scarcely  to  be  wondered  at  that  his  meth- 

37 


Books  in  General 

ods  of  reasoning  and  of  research  were  most  sur- 
prising. 

Most  people  who  read  his  pamphlet,  The  Shakes- 
peare Myth,  must  have  been  astounded  by  the 
naivete  of  some  of  the  "  proofs  "  there  contained. 
The  fact  that  Bacon  was  called  Bacon  —  a  name 
so  easily  interchangeable  with  pig,  hog,  and  rasher 
—  was  a  great  help;  for  where  the  application  of 
ciphers  did  not  obtain  one  word  it  might  obtain 
another.  Bacon,  according  to  Sir  Edwin,  must  have 
been  at  least  as  preoccupied  with  ensuring  his  identi- 
fication by  posterity  as  with  the  writing  of  good 
verse,  for  he  would  take  great  pains  to  work  in  such 
a  word  as  "  hang-hog,"  or  to  make  three  consecu- 
tive lines  begin  with  words  —  such  as  Pompey,  In, 
and  Got  —  out  of  the  initials  of  which  could  be 
constructed  the  appellation  "  pig."  Everything  was 
pork  that  came  to  Sir  Edwin's  net,  and  he  would  by 
tortuous  ratiocination  get  evidence  from  the  most 
seemingly  innocent  contemporary  English  and  for- 
eign engravings.  For  there  was  a  secret  brother- 
hood at  work  carrying  on  the  Baconian  tradition, 
and  the  artist  who  gave  the  portrait  of  Shakespeare 
two  left  sleeves  (the  confirmation  of  this  was,  I 
think,  obtained  from  the  editor  of  the  Tailor  &' 
Cutter)  had  a  subtle  and  profound  intention.  Sir 
Edwin  collected  a  very  large  library  in  connexion 
with  his  work,  and  the  study  of  it  was  his  passion; 
but,  save  industry,  he  had  none  of  the  qualifications 
for  his  task. 

38 


An  Eminent  Baconian 

I  myself  obtained  in  a  strange  way  an  amusing 
insight  into  his  looseness  of  procedure.  He  had 
been  writing  letters  maintaining  his  thesis  in  a  con- 
temporary weekly.  Wondering  whether  he  could 
be  hoaxed,  I  sent  to  the  paper  a  letter  over  what 
might  have  seemed,  to  a  man  with  any  real  detective 
faculty,  the  suspicious  signature  "  P.  O.  R.  Ker." 
In  this  letter  I  called  Sir  Edwin's  attention  to  a 
quotation  (which  I  had  myself  invented  and  written 
in  Elizabethanese)  which  I  ascribed  to  one  of  the 
best-known  works  of  Greene.  My  "  quotation  "  (I 
forget  its  wording,  but  it  contained  phrases  about 
"  Shakescene  "  and  "the  semblance  of  a  hogg") 
made  it  perfectly  clear  that  Shakespeare  was  merely 
Bacon's  dummy.  Any  man  with  the  sHghest  quali- 
fications for  his  work  would  have  looked  up  Greene 
for  reference  —  and  would  not  have  found  it.  Not 
so  Sir  Edwin,  He  wrote  in  at  once  (the  editor, 
in  order  to  spare  his  feelings,  did  not  print  the  com- 
munication) to  say  that  the  fact  that  Mr.  Ker's  im- 
portant and  convincing  reference  had  been  ignored 
by  the  Shakespeareans  showed  their  utter  incom- 
petence. 

But  the  most  striking  thing  about  him  was  his 
detestation  of  Shakespeare.  There  are  people  who 
hate  Napoleon;  there  are  people  who  object  to  Tor- 
quemada;  there  are  even  people  who  feel  a 
pronounced  distaste  for  Nero.  But  never  has  any 
one  loathed  and  despised  a  dead  man  as  the  really 

39 


Books  in  General 

mild  and  amiable  Sir  Edwin  despised  and  loathed 
Shakespeare.  No  epithets  were,  he  felt,  too  op- 
probrious for  this  rascal,  who  for  three  hundred 
years  had  cheated  another  man  out  of  his  due  fame. 
He  denied  Shakespeare  any  virtue  at  all;  he  pointed 
out  that  there  existed  no  proof  that  Shakespeare 
could  even  read;  and  he  habitually  referred  to  him 
as  the  "  drunken,  illiterate  clown  of  Stratford," 
"  the  sordid  money-lender  of  Stratford,"  and  "  the 
mean,  drunken,  ignorant,  and  absolutely  unlettered 
rustic  of  Stratford."  So  strong,  indeed,  were  his 
feelings  that  when  the  Times  says  that  "  One  cannot 
but  feel  that  he  was  happy  in  not  living  to  see  the 
celebrations  which  the  British  Academy  and  other 
friends  of  literature  are  to  hold  in  191 6,  the 
third  centenary  of  Shakespeare's  —  not  Bacon's 
—  death,"  it  is  not  making  a  weak  and  untimely  jest, 
but  stating  the  sober  truth. 

Who  will  now  take  on  Sir  Edwin's  mantle  as  the 
most  conspicuous  Baconian?  Mr.  George  Green- 
wood is  hors  concours  because,  though  an  anti- 
Shakespearean,  he  has  doubts  about  Bacon;  and  we 
have  heard  nothing  lately  about  that  romantic  Amer- 
ican doctor  who  a  year  or  two  ago  began  digging 
for  evidence  in  the  bed  of  the  sylvan  Wye.  That 
another  ardent  combatant  will  soon  appear  is  pretty 
certain;  in  fact,  there  will  probably  be  a  continual 
succession  of  such  for  all  time  unless  —  which  is 
unlikely  —  somebody  discovers  documentary  proofs 
40 


An  Eminent  Baconian 

of  Shakespeare's  authorship  so  irrefutable  that  no 
one  could  dream  of  challenging  them.  For  the  ex- 
amination of  a  mystery  —  if  you  can  persuade  your- 
self that  there  is  a  mystery  —  is  always  fascinating, 
and  the  search  for  and  application  of  ciphers  and 
hidden  meanings  produces  such  entertaining  results 
that  it  would  be  almost  worth  while  becoming  a 
Baconian  for  the  fun  of  it.     Almost,  but  not  quite. 


41 


The  Beauties  of  Badness 

THE  collector  of  amusingly  bad  poetry  has 
never  had  such  splendid  opportunities  as 
to-day.  The  world  is  all  before  him  where 
to  choose.  Modern  cheap  production  has  made  it 
easy  for  any  one  who  can  raise  £20  to  get  a  volume 
of  poems  printed;  and  of  recent  years  the  field  has 
been  greatly  enriched  by  the  growing  body  of  verse- 
writers  in  America  and  the  Colonies.  There  have 
always,  of  course,  been  poets  who  have  given  un- 
intentional rather  than  intentional  pleasure.  I  have 
before  me  a  volume  published  (at  Cambridge)  in 
1825,  entitled  Original  Poems  in  the  Moral,  Heroic, 
Pathetic  and  other  Styles,  by  a  Traveller,  which 
contains  poems  in  the  following  style  —  amongst 
others: 

INGRATITUDE 

My  Muse,  who  oft  recites  on  Love, 

Or  Heavenly  Beatitude, 
Her  strains  more  melancholy  move 

Devoted  to  Ingratitude. 

With  thee.  Dark  Demon  —  what  can  charm? 
Nor  manners  polish' d  —  chaste,  or  rude; 
42 


The  Beauties  of  Badness 

Nor  Friendship' 5  hand  —  nor  Safety's  arm 
So  vile  art  thou  —  Ingratitude  ! 

Tho'  dear  a  Female's  face,  or  form; 

Tho'  elegant  her  attitude; 
We  fly,  as  from  the  winged  storm  — 

//  she  pours  forth  Ingratitude. 

But  it  is  seldom  that  the  collector  comes  across  one 
of  these  delightful  relics  from  an  older  day.  The 
greater  part  of  any  collection  must  be  formed  of 
books  published  within  the  last  forty  years.  Our 
age  may  be  —  indeed,  it  is  —  deficient  in  some  re- 
spects, but  in  the  production  of  unintentionally  amus- 
ing writers  no  age,  not  even  the  Renaissance  or  the 
great  ages  of  Greece  and  Rome,  can  vie  with  it. 

It  might  be  possible  for  a  man  with  the  industry 
of  a  Herbert  Spencer  exhaustively  to  classify  the 
writers  of  whom  I  am  speaking,  and  to  tabulate  the 
qualities  which  give  to  their  works  their  peculiar 
virtues  —  incongruity  of  image,  unfortunate  use  of 
colloquialisms,  hopeless  slavery  to  the  necessity  of 
rhyme,  and  so  on.  I  am  no  Spencer;  indeed,  the 
only  things  I  have  in  common  with  that  philosopher 
are  a  taste  for  billiards  and  the  recollection  of  a 
single  visit  to  the  Derby.  To  me  there  is  a  single 
broad  division  which  connoisseurs  may  find  useful 
in  arranging  their  collections:  in  one  class  we  may 
put  those  poets  who  are  specifically  cranky;  in  the 
other  those  (some  silly,  some  quite  sensible  people 

43 


Books  in  General 

apart  from  their  artistic  proclivities)  who  (Macau- 
lay's  Robert  Montgomery  is  the  type)  try  to  write 
poems  like  other  people's,  but  whose  total  lack  of 
poetic  perception  leads  them  into  strange  aberra- 
tions of  expression. 

The  first  kind  are  comparatively  rare,  but  there 
are  some  good  examples  still  going  strong.  There 
is,  for  instance,  a  gentleman  (at  one  time  a  distin- 
guished scholar  of  Balliol)  who  describes  himself 
as  "  The  Modern  Homer,"  and  has  written  a  num- 
ber of  epics,  including  The  Human  Epic,  The  Epic 
of  London,  the  Epic  of  Charlemagne,  and  The 
Epic  of  God  and  the  Devil.  Preoccupation  with 
his  matter  leads  him  to  such  phrases  as: 

When  Murder  is  on  the  tapis 
Then  the  Devil  is  happy. 

But  he,  perhaps,  is  not  so  interesting  as  Mr.  William 
Nathan  Stedman,  who  used  to  live  in  London,  and 
now,  I  believe,  is  settled  in  Australia.  This  gentle- 
man is  addicted  to  prefaces  proving  that  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, "  this  Dirty  Old  Devil,"  "  this  sly  old 
wizard,  a  protoplasm  from  the  abyss  of  nowhere," 
was  the  Beast  of  the  Revelations,  and  he  has  an 
aversion  from  Mr.  R.  J.  Campbell,  whom  he  calls 
"  moo-cow,  kid-gloved  Campbell."  It  is  well  worth 
while  buying  his  Sonnets,  Lays  and  Lyrics.  The 
poems  themselves  are  not  so  amusing,  though  we 
sometimes  came  across  such  ambiguous  phrases  as: 
44 


The  Beauties  of  Badness 

And  when  upon  your  dainty  breast  I  lay 

My  wearied  head  —  more  soft  than  eiderdown. 

But  the  illustrations  —  wood-blocks  from  eminent 
artists  like  Albert  Diirer  and  Louis  Wain  —  are 
charmingly  irrelevant,  and  the  prose  passages  are 
unique.  The  poet  refers  to  the  Laureateship  — "  an 
office  I  refused  after  Tennyson's  death,  though  made 
with  the  offer  of  a  premier's  daughter  and  £30,000  " 
—  and  he  is  violently  down  on  critics  who  have 
failed  to  see  the  merits  of  a  certain  novelist  whom  he 
calls  "  Queen  Marie,"  "  a  woman  who  did  you 
no  wrong,  nor  envied  ye  your  bones  and  offal, 
but  gave  Most  Interesting  Books  for  your  better- 
ment and  education.  Are  ye  not  dirty  dogs  and 
devils?  Eh?"  "  Bull-browed  bastards  "  is  one  of 
the  mildest  terms  he  applies  to  the  critics. 

Difficult  to  place  in  either  class  are  the  poets  who 
have  some  technical  faculty,  who  are  not  necessarily 
cranks,  but  who  endeavour  to  put  such  extraordi- 
narily prosy  things  into  verse  that  the  result  is  as 
comic  as  though  they  were.  I  have,  for  example,  a 
book  containing  "  a  lyrical  romance  in  verse,"  which 
tells  a  story,  that  might  have  gone  quite  well  in 
prose,  of  a  man  who  falls  in  love  with  a  girl  and  has 
long  discussions  with  her  about  politics.  The 
author's  choice  of  a  metrical  form  leads  him  to  pages 
and  pages  of  this  sort  of  thing: 

/  ceased,  and  somewhat  eagerly  she  asked: 
"  Then  you  would  justify  the  Socialist, 

45 


Books  in  General 

Or  Anarchist,  the  brute  assassin,  masked 

As  a  reformer,  him  who  has  dismissed 
All  scruples,  and  himself  or  others  tasked 
To  murder  innocence?     Can  there  exist 
A  reason  to  excuse  Luccheni's  action. 
Of  life's  great  rights  most  dastardly  in- 
fraction?'' 

"Excuse  it,  no!  "  I  said;  "  nor  justify  it; 

IBut  understand  it  yes!  —  /  find  confusion 
In  both  your  questions;  and,  your  words  imply 

it, 
They  have  their  base  in  popular  illusion. 
In  Socialism  and  Anarchism,  deny  it 

fVho  will,  there's  no  imperative  inclusion 
Of  violence.     Each,  aiming  at  reform, 
JVould    lay    life's    ever-raging    life    and 
storm." 

The  growth  of  the  Socialist  and  Suffragist  move- 
ments has  led  to  a  great  increase  in  this  kind  of 
argumentative  verse;  but  the  bad  poems  in  the 
Conservative  or  Militarist  interests  are  generally 
very  much  worse,  a  type-specimen  being  this: 

And  so  with  foes  about  us 
Just  waiting  for  their  chance 

We  must  become  a  nation  armed 
hike  Germany  and  France. 

Another  example  of  Imperialist  verse  is: 
46 


The  Beauties  of  Badness 

I'm  old  John  Bull  of  England, 

My  triumphs  are  in  song. 
I've  fought  and  won  great  victories 

Which  did  not  take  me  long. 

I've  fought  in  many  a  battle 

By  sea  as  well  as  land. 
I've  fought  in  Russia,  Belgium, 

Africa  and  India's  golden  strand, 

which  occurs  in  a  work  appealing  for  better  treat- 
ment for  British  Honduras. 

But  most  of  the  best  bad  verse  is  not  propagandist. 
Amongst  the  classics  of  the  kind  the  Works  of 
Johnston-Smith  rank  high.  These  have  been  pub- 
lished complete  in  one  volume,  but  the  best  of  them 
are  to  be  found  in  a  smaller  book  entitled  The 
Captain  of  the  Dolphin.  Mr.  Johnston-Smith  had 
a  great  vocabulary  and  peculiar  gifts  of  metaphor 
and  of  abrupt  conclusion.  Here  are  some  typical 
passages : 

A  halminess  the  darkened  hours  had  brought  from 

out  the  South, 
Each  breaker  doffed  its  cap  of  white  and  shut  its 

blatant  mouth. 

Strike,  strike  your  flag,  Sidonia, 

And  lessen  death  and  pain; 
"  Strike,"  *'  Fight  '^  are  but  synonyma 

For  misery  to  Spain. 

47 


Books  in  General 

On  speedy  wing  the  graceful  sea-fowl  follow  fast  — 
They  seem  to  me  the  souls  of  seamen  drowned, 

Who  have  for  sailors,  ships  and  ocean's  briny  blast 
Dumb  love  which  they  are  yearning  to  propound. 

O'er  the  sea's  edge  the  sun,  a  dazzling  disc. 
In  splendour  hangs,  preparing  for  his  plunge; 

Upon  the  heaven's  bright  page  he  stamps  an  asterisk 
Of  yellow  beams  which  Western  things  expunge. 

Reluctant  I  leave,  like  a  lover  who  goes 
From  the  side  of  the  maid  of  his  choice. 

By  whom  he  is  held  with  a  cord  actuose 
Spun  out  of  her  beauty  and  voice. 

"  Actuose  "  is  verv  characteristic  of  this  poet,  who 
uses  enormous  numbers  of  astonishing  words  of 
which  he  does  not  tell  us  the  meaning,  although  he 
gives  us  a  glossary  containing  such  definitions  as: 

Derelict.     An  abandoned  ship. 
Outward-bound.     Sailing  from  home. 
Yo-heave-ho!     A  phrase  used  by  sailors  when  two 
or  more  pull  in  concert  at  the  same  rope. 

One  of  his  nicest  surprises  is  the  ending  of: 

Where  the  sun  circles  round  for  the  half  of  the  year 
And  is  cold  —  like  a  yellow  balloon. 

The  kind  of  thrill  produced  by  this  unexpected  end- 
48 


The  Beauties  of  Badness 

ing  is,  of  course,  common  in  verse.  Some  readers 
will  be  acquainted  with  the  epitaph : 

Here  beneath  this  stone  at  rest 
Lies  the  dear  dog  who  loved  us  best. 
Within  his  heart  was  nothing  mean, 
He  seemed  just  like  a  human  being. 

But  a  University  poet's  anticlimax  on  Actaeon  may 
not  be  so  generally  known: 

His  hands  were  changed  to  feet,  and  he  in  short 
Became  a  stag.  .  .  . 

Nor  this  affecting  stanza  from  a  woman's  book  re- 
cently published: 

What  o'  the  wind? 
It  hisses  through  a  vessel's  spars. 

What  o'  the  wind? 
It  is  in  truth  to  mercy  blind. 
It  surely  from  all  rest  debars. 
And  even  frights  the  sturdy  "  tars." 

What  o'  the  wind? 

An  equal  bathos  is  sometimes  produced  by  inappro- 
priate metaphor.  The  worst  instance  I  know  is 
found  in  the  poems  of  quite  a  well-known  writer  who 
describes  roses: 

Aft  before  and  fore  behind 
Swung  upon  the  summer  wind. 

49 


Books  in  General 

But  the  author  of  a  recent  drama  of  the  Near  East 
came  pretty  near  it  with 

.  .  .  the  diamond  shaft  of  the  fierce  searchlight 
From  the  lens  of  the  crystal  moon. 

The  chase  after  the  unusual  almost  always  means 
disaster.     This  is  another  recent  example: 

/  have  found  thee,  dear!  on  the  edge  of  time, 
Just  over  the  brink  of  the  world  of  sense; 
In  dream-life  that's  ours,  when  with  love  intense 
We  function  above,  in  a  fairer  clime. 

I  have  found  thee  there,  in  a  world  of  rest, 
In  the  fair  sweet  gardens  of  sunlit  bliss. 
Where  the  sibilant  sound  of  an  Angel's  kiss 
Is  the  sanctioned  seal  of  a  Holy  quest. 

But  nothing  produced  in  this  manner  is  so  attrac- 
tive as  the  merely  commonplace  can  be  when  carried 
to  its  farthest  pitch.  A  year  or  two  ago  a  young 
American  published  a  volume  with  a  preface  ending: 
*'  He  was  apprised  of  the  death  of  his  invalid 
brother,  whose  remaining  portion  of  his  grand- 
father's legacy  accruing  to  him  facilitated  the  publi- 
cation of  this  book."     The  epilogue  ran  as  follows: 

Oh,  the  rain,  rain,  rain! 
All  the  day  it  doth  complain. 
On  the  window-pane,  just  near  me, 
SO 


The  Beauties  of  Badness 

How  it  sputters,  oh,  how  dreary! 
One  becomes  so  awful  weary 
With  the  rain,  rain,  rain. 


The  difference  between  this  and  Verlaine's  //  pleut 
sur  la  ville  would  be  hard  to  define,  but  there  cer- 
tainly is  a  marked  difference. 

Most  of  the  poets  quoted  above  have,  at  any 
rate,  the  gift  of  moving  with  some  freedom  within 
their  metres.  But  some  people  who  publish  verse 
cannot  even  do  that,  however  simple  the  forms  they 
choose.  They  struggle  through  their  poems  like 
flies  in  treacle.  A  good  example  may  be  taken 
from  a  book  (excellently  produced)  issued  only  a 
year  ago  by  one  of  the  foremost  publishers.  Apart 
from  its  other  qualities,  it  shows  a  most  extraordi- 
narily revolutionary  conception  of  the  way  in  which 
lines  may  be  ended: 

A  man's  home  is  a  woman's  breast.     There  see 

Him  in  infancy,  and  later,  seeks  he 

Inspiration  from  the  self -same  source.     'Tis 

His  home,  t'wards  which,  from  cradle  to  the  grave. 

He  doth  gravitate,  accomplishing  his 

Greatest  works  by  aid  of  it.     Man  on  the 

Woman's  aid  depends.     Oft  unconsciously 

'Tis  given,  oft  loyally  the  truth's  in 

Loving  breast  safeguarded  —  less  often  'tis 

In  cruelty  withheld. 

51 


Books  in  General 

This  supplies  the  only  case  I  know  of  in  which  the 
article  "  the  "  has  been  used  as  a  rhyme.  But  for 
sheer  struggle  the  poem  does  not  excel  parts  of  this 
other  one,  which  was  published  in  a  recent  anthology : 

Along  a  marsh  a  hungry  crane 

JVith  patient  steps,  his  way  did  take 

Each  cranny  of  the  rivage  fain 
To  ransack  with  his  slender  beak, 

When,  suddenly,  his  watchful  eye. 
At  but  four  paces  distance,  saw 

A  worm,  that  back,  as  suddenly. 

To  his  subterranean  hole  did  draw. 

Nathless  the  crane  did,  straight,  begin 
His  beak,  and  claw,  alike,  to  ply 

And  hoping  the  retreat  be,  in 

The  end,  of  the  insect  might  destroy, 

The  turf  did  tear  up,  and  dispel 

The  clods,  and  with  such  vigour  strive 

That  he,  at  last,  perceives  his  bill 
At  of  the  cave  the  depth  arrive; 

But  lof  just  when  of  all  his  toil. 
The  object  he  was  nigh  to  get, 

Beneath  his  very  nib,  a  mole, 
Without  ado,  devoured  it/ 


Thus  often,  lurchers,  onward  who 
Are  prone  by  shady  ways  to  creep 


52 


The  Beauties  of  Badness 

May  the  reward  to  those  thafs  due 
Who,  openly,  have  acted,  reap. 

This  fable  is  called  by  the  author  A  Surreptitious 
Catch;  but  it  might  equally  fitly  have  been  entitled 
The  Apotheosis  of  the  Comma. 

I  have,  as  I  say,  insufficient  scientific  talent  to 
enter  upon  an  analytic  criticism  of  this  kind  of 
poetry;  and  in  this  brief  discourse  I  have  done  little 
more  than  string  quotations  together.  But  that 
operation  is  all  that  is  needed  to  serve  my  present 
object  —  viz.  the  propagation  of  the  cult.  Any  one 
who  has  ever  read  the  novel  of  Mrs.  Amanda 
M'Kittrick  Ros  knows  how  much  sustenance  the 
human  spirit  may  derive  from  the  byways  of  litera- 
ture; but  it  is  very  rarely  that  one  meets,  even 
amongst  the  best-read  of  men,  one  who  is  conscious 
of  the  peculiar  poetic  treasures  that  lie  about  in  the 
publishers'  offices  and  on  the  second-hand  bookstalls 
simply  imploring  to  be  collected. 


53 


More  Badness 

MY  appeal  for  interesting  specimens  of  bad 
verse  has  brought  me  a  large  mass  of 
material;  but  most  of  my  correspondents 
seem  not  to  realize  that  merely  feeble  and  meaning- 
less verse  is  so  common  as  not  to  be  worth  preserv- 
ing. The  best  single  line  I  have  received  —  sent  me 
by  a  notorious  dramatist  who  has  forgotten  its  place 
of  origin  — is : 

The  beetle  booms  adown  the  glooms  and  bumps 
among  the  clumps; 

and  what  promised  to  be  the  best  whole  poem  is 
one  that  begins  by  rhyming  "  Atlantic  "  to  "  blan- 
ket." But  when  I  had  got  through  it  I  found  that 
my  correspondent  had  got  it  out  of  a  visitors'  book 
in  an  hotel.  I  really  cannot  count  anything  that 
has  not  been  properly  published;  although  I  confess 
to  being  tempted  by  such  lines  as : 

Farewell,  farewell,   bonny  St.  Ives, 
May  I  live  to  see  you  again. 

Your  air  preserves  people's  lives 
And  you  have  so  little  rain. 

54 


More  Badness 

So  really  the  best  acquisition  I  have  made  is  the 
following,  the  author  of  which  I  should  like  to 
discover: 

In  this  imperfect  J  gloomy  scene 

Of  complicated  ill, 
How  rarely  is  a  day  serene, 

The  throbbing  bosom  still! 
Will  not  a  beauteous  landscape  bright 

Or  music's  soothing  sound, 
Console  the  heart,  afford  delight, 

And  throw  sweet  peace  around? 
They  may;  but  never  comfort  lend 
Like  an  accomplished  female  friend! 

With  such  a  friend  the  social  hour 

In  sweetest  pleasure  glides; 
There  is,  in  female  charms  a  power 

Which  lastingly  abides; 
The  fragrance  of  the  blushing  rose. 

Its  tints  and  splendid  hue. 
Will,  with  the  seasons,  decompose. 

And  pass  as  flitting  dew; 
On  firmer  ties  his  joys  depend 
Who  has  a  faithful  female  friend! 

As  orbs  revolve,  and  years  recede. 

And  seasons  onward  roll. 
The  fancy  may  on  beauties  feed 

With  discontented  soul; 

55 


Books  in  General 

A  thousand  objects  bright  and  fair 

May  for  a  moment  shine, 
Yet  many  a  sigh  and  many  a  tear 

But  mark  their  swift  decline; 
While  lasting  joys  the  man  attend 
JVho  has  a  polished  female  friend! 

My  correspondent  says  that  he  received  this  from 
a  friend  (perhaps  a  polished  female  friend),  who 
did  not  tell  him  whence  it  was  extracted.  I  myself 
have  seen  two  lines  of  it  before  —  the  last  two  of 
the  second  stanza.  They  occurred  in  a  letter  I  re- 
ceived some  time  ago  from  a  clerical  acquaintance 
who  was  apologizing  for  having  got  engaged.  He, 
on  inquiry,  pretended  (with  a  mendacity  very  rare 
amongst  clergymen)  that  he  had  written  the  lines 
himself;  but  I  did  not  believe  him.  The  poem  bears 
the  marks  of  the  earlier  decades  of  the  nineteenth 
century.     Can  it  be  by  Thomas  Haynes  Bayly? 

One  interesting  thing  I  should  like  to  trace  is  a 
metrical  version  of  Holy  Writ  containing  such  lines 
as  these  on  Jonah: 

Three  dreadful  days  beneath  the  deep, 
In  fish's  belly  dark  lay  he. 
How  terrible  methinks  his  fate. 
May  no  such  torment  fall  on  me. 

The  most  ingenious  writer  who  contributes  the  "  Ob- 
servator  "  column  to  the  Observer  offers  me  a  couple 

56 


More  Badness 

of  specimens,  one  of  which  is  new  to  me.  The  old 
one  is  the  late  Mr.  Alfred  Austin's  remark  about 
Nature : 

She  sins  upon  a  larger  scale 
Because  she  is  herself  more  large. 

And  the  other,  a  touching  narrative  of  a  gipsy 
woman  who  fell  ill,  was  a  discovery  of  Andrew 
Lang's : 

There  we  leave  her, 

There  we  leave  her, 
Far  from  where  her  swarthy  kindred  roam, 

In  the  Scarlet  Fever, 

Scarlet  Fever, 
Scarlet  Fever  Convalescent  Home. 


57 


A  Mystery  Solved 


APPARENTLY  the  poem  about  "  a  polished 
female  friend  "  is  to  be  found  in  one  of 
Mr.  E.  V.  Lucas's  books.  It  was  written, 
it  seems,  by  a  parson  named  Whur  or  Whurr,  who 
flourisheci  in  Norfolk  about  a  century  ago.  Whur 
delighted  in  all  calamities,  and  described  a  father,  on 
the  birth  of  a  child  with  no  arms,  exclaiming: 
"  This  armless  child  will  ruin  me."  No  one  has  yet 
brought  to  my  notice  any  whole  volumes  of  bad 
verse  worth  acquiring,  though  various  choice  frag- 
ments have  reached  me.  There  is  an  epithalamium 
ending: 

And  never,  never  she'll  forget 

The  happy,  happy  day. 

When  in  the  church,  before  God's  priest, 

She  gave  herself  away. 

There  is  an  in  memoriam  poem  beginning: 

Dear  Friends,  we  had  a  sudden  Blast 
Which  came  to  us  unexpected. 

And  there  is  a  loyal  song  to  their  present  Majesties 
in  which  occur  the  lines: 

58 


A  Mystery  Solved 

Our  King  and  Queen  are  never  proud 
They  mingle  with  the  densest  crowd. 

But  the  most  attractive  new  specimen  is  a  poem  on 
the  late  monarch's  death.  It  was  printed  and  sold 
as  a  broadsheet  in  London,  and  runs: 

The  will  of  God  we  must  obey. 
Dreadful  —  our  King  taken  away! 
The  greatest  friend  of  the  nation, 
Mighty  monarch  and  protection! 

Heavenly  Father,  help  in  sorrow 
Queen  Mother,  and  them  to  follow. 
What  to  do  without  him  who  has  gone! 
Pray  help!  help!  and  do  lead  us  on. 

Greatest  sorrow  England  ever  had 
When  death  took  away  our  Dear  Dad; 
A  king  was  he  from  head  to  sole, 
Loved  by  his  people  one  and  all. 

His  mighty  work  for  the  Nation, 
Making  peace  and  strengthening  union  — 
Always  at  it  since  on  the  throne: 
Saved  the  country  more  than  billion. 

There  are  two  more  verses.  Personally,  I  find  this 
considerably  more  interesting  than  any  of  Mr.  Al- 
fred Noyes's  various  Coronation  Odes. 

59 


Carrying  the  Alliance  too  far 

WHY  is  it  that  Japanese  authors  are  allowed 
to  write  in  English  newspapers  any  sort 
of  barbarous  jargon  they  like?  Mr. 
Yoshio  Markino  was  the  first  to  be  licensed.  To 
start  with,  one  found  his  "  delightfully  quaint  "  Eng- 
lish amusing  in  a  mild  way,  but  with  repetition  his 
sedulously  cherished  howlers  became  irritating. 
Still,  he  was  only  one;  and  primarily  a  painter  at 
that.  But  now  Mr.  Yone  Noguchi  has  turned  up, 
and  he  is  doing  the  same  thing.  Mr.  Noguchi  is 
considered  in  Japan  —  at  least  so  his  friends  tell 
us  —  the  first  poet  of  the  day.  Those  who  remem- 
bered his  last  residence  here  assured  us  that  on  his 
return  he  would  compel  all  men  —  like  Helen  of 
Troy  or  Mr.  Tagore.  He  comes.  One  is  prepared 
to  be  conquered.  One  turns  to  one's  Westminster 
Gazette  to  read  his  works;  and  one  finds  there 
columns  of  stuff,  possibly  inspired,  but  certainly  writ- 
ten in  such  pidgin-English  that  one  cannot  bother 
to  read  it. 

Mr.  Noguchi's  pidgin-English  is  not  of  quite  so 
curious  a  breed  as  Mr.  Markino's,  but  it  is  suffi- 
ciently bad.  One  does  not  blame  him  for  that. 
60 


Carrying  the  Alliance  too  far 

He  writes  English  a  great  deal  better  than  I  do 
Japanese.  But  why  on  earth  cannot  the  newspapers 
who  print  his  works  translate  them  into  normal  Eng- 
lish? Is  it  that  their  sub-editors  shrink  from  the 
task?  Is  it  that  they  fondly  believe  that  we  are 
all  so  fascinated  by  English  of  the  Noguchi-Mark- 
inesque  brand  that  we  had  much  rather  have  it  than 
any  other  sort;  or  is  it  that  a  tradition  has  been 
established  that  Anglo-Japanese  articles  are  not  to 
be  altered?  If  this  is  true,  it  is  a  thousand  pities 
that,  for  all  their  charm,  Mr.  Markino's  early  pro- 
ductions were  not  unmercifully  damned.  What 
should  we  say  if  newspapers  began  printing  in  all 
their  native  crudity  articles  by  Frenchmen  and  Ger- 
mans imperfectly  acquainted  with  the  tongue  of  this 
country?  Suppose  some  journal  came  out  next  week 
with  an  essay  beginning: 

"  What  sadly  fall  the  leaves  of  automne !  What 
of  sadness  tumble  on  the  heart  because  that  the 
winter  put  his  snows  on  all  the  country.  And  sad 
also  the  spring,  the  spring  who  arouse  the  love  in 
the  soul,  and  who  make  to  think  to  all  the  springs 
of  the  time  past.  My  heart  weep  like  a  bird  who 
have  lose  her  companion." 

Or  suppose  a  German  were  allowed  by  the  West- 
minster to  present  its  readers  with  a  political  article 
opening: 

6i 


Books  in  General 

*'  No  Dutcher  has  the  by  Mr.  Gamaliel  Zoop, 
Amerikansh  postaltelegrafkommunikationdepart- 
ment  minister  on  politishekonomy  famose  lecture 
to  a  at  Manchester  people-coming-together  delivered 
recently  without  outerorderly  pleasure  read." 

Obviously  we  should  not  tolerate  it.  Can  It  be 
that,  even  after  the  war  with  Russia,  even  after 
Japanese  professors  have  written  works  on  sociology, 
the  superstition  lingers  here  that  a  thing  cannot 
possibly  be  truly  Japanese  unless  it  has  the  odour  of 
an  old  curiosity  shop? 

None  of  this,  I  may  say,  is  meant  to  be  discourte- 
ous to  Mr.  Noguchi.  I  merely  suggest  that  it  would 
be  better  for  him  if  he  vetoed  every  endeavour  to 
print  his  English  articles  as  he  writes  them.  If 
he  were  the  Japanese  Homer  —  indeed,  he  may  be 
that  for  all  I  know  —  I  should  say  precisely  the 
same  thing.  Can  he  be  aware  that  even  his  faulty 
spelling  goes  uncorrected? 


62 


May  1914 


I  WRITE  "  these  lines  "  just  after  arriving  in 
Berlin.  Not  that  I  have  anything  to  say  about 
that.  I  merely  mention  the  fact.  It  may  ex- 
plain my  difficulties.  The  journey  is  really  very 
dull.  All  those  hundreds  of  miles  over  the  Great 
Plain  of  Europe  with  never  a  hill  except  the  ridge  of 
Minden,  very  little  water,  nothing  but  endless  flat 
fields  sprinkled  with  trees,  church  spires,  and  red 
farm-houses.  There  is  simply  nothing  to  look  at. 
If  you  put  your  head  out  of  the  window  at  Osna- 
briick,  you  may  see  some  coal;  and  at  Miinster  you 
may,  if  you  choose,  speculate  as  to  which  of  the 
people  on  the  platform  are  Anabaptists.  That  is 
not  much  during  a  twelve-hour  run  from  Flushing. 

A  pleasant  travelling  companion  is  an  alleviation 
on  such  occasions.  The  other  occupant  of  my  car- 
riage had  points  about  her.  She  was  a  young,  cheer- 
ful, and  rather  obese  Jewess  going  home  with  a 
plethora  of  scarves  and  wraps,  several  boxes,  two 
lobsters  (for  her  father),  and  a  canary.  At  Goch 
she  was  incensed  to  find  that  she  had  to  pay  a  heavy 
duty  on  the  lobsters,  so  heavy  that  it  would  have  paid 
her  better  to  get  the  creatures  in  Berlin  and  have  a 
drink  on  the  balance.     This  story  might  make  an 


Books  in  General 

illustration  for  one  of  Mr.  Lloyd  George's  homely 
speeches  on  Free  Trade.  But  there  was  no  duty  on 
the  canary.  In  his  little  cage,  covered  with  a  green 
curtain,  the  canary  sat,  non-dutiable  but  very  phleg- 
matic. At  frequent  intervals  his  mistress  lifted  the 
green  curtain,  looked  him  in  the  eyes  with  a  bewitch- 
ing smile,  and  piped  "  Peep,  Peep."  The  bird  never 
replied,  though  perhaps  he  looked  his  response. 
The  lady  then  turned  to  me  and  said,  "  Is  'e  not  a 
nice  bird?  Is  'e  not  goot?  "  and  common  polite- 
ness —  leaving  gallantry  out  of  the  question  —  com- 
pelled me  to  reply  always,  "  Yes,  a  beautiful  little 
bird."  About  twice  an  hour  she  retired  to  the  din- 
ing-car and  came  back  exuding  smiles  and  sighs 
"  I  half  joost  'ad  a  bifsteck.  I  dawn't  like  steck." 
How  true  it  is  that  in  life  we  have  to  be  content 
with  second-bests!  But  I  did  not  discuss  the  mat- 
ter. 

In  intervals  of  silence  I  finished  Mrs.  Russell  Bar- 
rington's  Life  of  Walter  Bagehot  (Longmans,  12s. 
6d.  net).  It  is  a  strange  thing — and  unfortunate, 
since  so  much  material  has  disappeared  with  the  pas- 
sage of  time  —  that  Bagehot  should  have  had  to 
wait  nearly  forty  years  for  a  biography.  But  now 
it  has  come  it  is  an  interesting  one.  The  author 
being  Bagehot's  sister-in-law  (daughter  of  James 
Wilson,  who  founded  the  Economist)  ^  the  work  has 
rather  a  family  air.  Bagehot's  more  obvious  virtues 
are  a  little  too  much  insisted  upon,  and  excessive 
64 


May  1914 

importance  is  attributed  to  irrelevant  details.  The 
long  description  of  his  ancestry  and  birthplace,  for 
instance,  might  have  been  curtailed.  But  the  Life 
is  well  written;  it  contains  a  great  many  interesting 
letters,  and  it  gives  a  really  living  picture  of  one 
whom  Lord  Bryce  has  called  "  the  most  original 
mind  of  his  generation." 

One  would  wish,  however,  for  a  supplement  giv- 
ing a  fuller  analysis  of  Bagehot's  literary  work. 
Mrs.  Barrington  gives  little  more  than  a  list  of  the 
titles  of  his  essays.  It  is  true  that  to  most  people 
Bagehot  is  still  primarily  the  political  and  economic 
writer.  There  are  few  intelligent  Englishmen  to- 
day who  have  not  been  influenced  by  The  English 
Constitution  and,  in  a  lesser  degree,  by  Physics  and 
Politics.  His  Economic  Studies  make  the  rudiments 
of  political  economy  as  simple  and  even  as  entertain- 
ing as  a  good  fairy-tale,  and  those  who  have  read 
Lombard  Street  speak  of  it  as  a  masterpiece.  But 
the  most  extraordinary  thing  about  it  is  that  this 
man,  who  knew  all  about  currency,  who  was  in  the 
confidence  of  Chancellors  of  the  Exchequer,  and  who 
invented  Treasury  Bills,  was  also  one  of  the  most 
illuminating  and  sympathetic  literary  critics  that 
England  has  ever  produced.  Personally  I  find  his 
literary  essays  inferior  to  those  of  no  other  English 
critic  who  was  not  himself  a  poet,  and  I  think  that  in 
some  respects,  though  not  in  all,  they  are  better 
than  Arnold's. 

65 


Books  in  General 

Probably  Bagehot's  celebrity  as  an  economist 
militated  for  some  years  after  his  death  against  the 
popularity  of  his  literary  work.  Many  literary 
people,  looking  through  the  complete  list  of  his 
works,  and  seeing  Literary  and  Biographical  Studies 
jostling  shoulders  with  works  on  money,  may  very 
pardonably  have  assumed  that  these  Studies,  how- 
ever able,  must  have  been  of  a  dry,  hard  character. 
They  are  very  far  from  that;  no  English  criticism 
is  more  human  than  his,  less  coldly  intellectual;  his 
temperament,  naturally  emotional  and  mystical,  was 
most  valuably  reinforced  by  the  balance,  the  toler- 
ance, the  sanity  that  were  developed  by  his  more 
mundane  activities,  but  the  temporal  man  in  him 
never  overcame  the  eternal.  Such  essays  as  those 
on  Hartley  Coleridge,  on  Shelley,  on  Dickens,  on 
Cowper,  on  the  Edinburgh  Reviewers,  are  bound  be- 
fore long  to  be  recognized  as  among  the  great  clas- 
sics of  English  criticism.  Naturally  he  was  not  im- 
peccable; posterity  may  think,  for  example,  that  he 
attached  too  much  importance  to  his  friend  Clough. 
But  he  is  usually  completely  convincing.  Take  the 
following  passage  from  the  comparison  of  Words- 
worth and  Jeffrey : 

"  A  clear,  precise,  discriminating  intellect  shrinks 
at  once  from  the  symbolic,  the  unfounded,  the 
indefinite.  The  misfortune  is  that  mysticism  is 
true.  There  certainly  are  kinds  of  truths,  borne  in 
as  it  were  instinctively  on  the  human  intellect,  most 
66 


May  1914 

influential  on  the  character  and  the  heart,  yet  hardly 
capable  of  stringent  statement,  difficult  to  limit  by 
an  elaborate  definition.  Their  course  is  shadowy; 
the  mind  seems  rather  to  have  seen  than  to  see  them, 
more  to  feel  after  than  definitely  apprehend  them. 
They  commonly  involve  an  infinite  element  which,  of 
course,  cannot  be  stated  precisely,  or  else  a  first 
principle  —  an  original  tendency  of  our  intellectual 
constitution,  which  it  is  impossible  not  to  feel,  and 
yet  which  it  is  hard  to  extricate  in  terms  and  words. 
Of  this  latter  kind  is  what  has  been  called  the  relig- 
ion of  Nature,  or  more  exactly,  perhaps,  the  religion 
of  the  imagination.  This  is  an  interpretation  of  the 
world.  Accordingly,  to  it  the  beauty  of  the  universe 
has  a  meaning,  its  grandeur  a  soul,  and  its  sublimity 
an  expression.  As  we  gaze  on  the  faces  of  those 
whom  we  love;  as  we  watch  the  light  of  life  in  the 
dawning  of  their  eyes,  and  the  play  of  their  features, 
and  the  wildness  of  their  animation;  as  we  trace  in 
changing  lineaments  a  varying  sign;  as  a  charm  and 
a  thrill  seem  to  run  along  the  tone  of  a  voice,  to 
haunt  the  mind  with  a  mere  word;  as  a  tone  seems 
to  roar  in  the  ear;  as  a  trembling  fancy  hears  words 
that  are  unspoken;  so  in  Nature  the  mystical  sense 
finds  a  motion  in  the  mountain,  and  a  power  in  the 
waves,  and  a  meaning  in  the  long  white  line  of  the 
shore,  and  a  thought  in  the  blue  of  heaven,  and  a 
gushing  soul  in  the  buoyant  light,  an  unbounded 
being  in  the  vast  void  of  air,  and 

67 


Books  in  General 

Wakeful  watching  in  the  pointed  stars 

**  There  is  a  philosophy  in  this  which  might  be 
explained,  if  explaining  were  to  our  purpose.  It 
might  be  advanced  that  there  are  original  sources 
of  expression  in  the  essential  grandeur  and  sublim- 
ity of  Nature,  of  an  analogous  though  fainter  kind 
to  those  familiar,  inexplicable  signs  by  which  we 
trace  in  the  very  face  and  outward  lineaments  of  man 
the  existence  and  working  of  the  mind  within.  But 
be  this  as  it  may,  it  is  certain  that  Mr.  Wordsworth 
preached  this  kind  of  religion  and  that  Lord  Jeffrey 
did  not  believe  a  word  of  it." 

The  visionary  and  the  epigrammatist  are  near 
allied,  and  both  the  practical  and  the  ideal  in  Bage- 
hot  are  illustrated  in  his  own  phrase :  "  If  you  would 
vanquish  Earth,  you  must  invent  Heaven."  Bage- 
hot,  as  he  appeared  to  ordinary  people  every  day,  is 
portrayed  in  another  sentence.  *'  He  left  many,"  it 
is  said,  "  with  the  idea  that  he  was  a  good  fellow,  yet 
with  no  idea  that  he  was  a  great  man."  A  great 
man  can  have  no  better  epitaph. 


68 


May  1914:  The  Leipzig 
Exhibition 

ANY  one  who  imagines  that  the  English  can, 
or  at  all  events  do,  compete  with  the  Ger- 
mans in  beauty  of  book-production  had  bet- 
ter go  to  Leipzig  this  summer  and  visit  the  Buchge- 
werbe  und  Graphik  Exhibition  —  or  "  Bugra,"  as  it 
is  universally  called  in  Germany.  The  new  railway 
station  —  the  finest  in  the  world  —  is  also  worth 
going  to  see;  but  that,  presumably,  will  last  after  this 
year.  In  many  respects  the  exhibition  is  like  all 
other  big  exhibitions.  It  is  much  too  enormous  tq 
be  capable  of  thorough  inspection.  Leaving  out  of 
account  the  huge  buildings  devoted  to  the  mechanics 
of  printing  and  so  on,  there  are  a  palace  ("  The 
Hall  of  Kultur,"  of  course),  filled  with  engravings 
and  photographs ;  a  colossal  structure  containing  the 
exhibits  of  German  publishers  of  books  and  music; 
and  pavilions  for  most  of  the  other  nations  of  the 
earth.  Even  Corea  has  a  building  —  though  I  did 
not  see  it  —  and  Siam  is  well  to  the  fore.  The  ex- 
hibition grounds  are  very  extensive;  they  contain 
(need  I  say?)  a  "  Street  of  Nations,"  many  foun- 
tains, and  countless  cafes.  There  is  a  reproduction 
of  Heidelberg  Castle,  full  of  drinking-cups  and  the 

69 


Books  in  General 

weapons  with  which  German  students  put  a  little 
interest  into  each  other's  faces.  There  is  a  Bavar- 
ian Hall,  where  real  peasant  maidens  bring  your 
beer  and  the  latest  and  cheapest  musical-comedy 
tunes  are  played  by  real  peasant  musicians,  with 
feathered  hats  and  costume  complete  down  to  the 
bare  knees  that  they  insist  on  retaining  in  the  face 
of  a  proclamation  by  the  local  Catholic  hierarchs  to 
the  effect  that  such  a  display  of  naked  charms  is 
grossly  indecent.  There  is  no  wiggle-woggle,  but 
there  is  a  waterchute  and  a  shooting-gallery  whose 
proprietors  invite  you  to  come  in  and  try  your  skill 
at  "  live  objects."  The  man  who  was  with  me  — 
he  is  a  person  who,  like  Mr.  Galsworthy,  would  not 
touch  a  fly  "  save  "  (as  the  old  verse  has  it)  "  in  the 
way  of  kindness," —  refused  to  come  in.  Naively 
distrustful  of  aliens  he  was  afraid,  he  said,  that 
the  targets  might  be  dogs.  But  he  need  not  have 
been  alarmed,  for  we  were  afterwards  informed  that 
they  were  merely  big  game  thrown  on  a  screen  by  a 
cinematograph.  When  you  hit  an  animal  it  did  not 
drop,  but  a  red  light  showed. 

Naturally  comparisons  between  the  exhibits  should 
be  made  very  cautiously;  the  exhibition  is  being  held 
on  German  soil  and  the  German  display  is  much 
larger  than  any  other.  In  many  respects  England 
shows  up  very  well.  The  English  section  in  the 
Halle  der  Kultur  is  certainly  as  good  as  any,  and 
the  etchings  shown  by  Mr.  Muirhead  Bone,  Mr, 
70 


May  1914:     The  Leipzig  Exhibition 

Charles  Shannon,  Sir  Charles  Holroyd,  and  other 
British  artists  are  possibly  the  very  best  things  in  the 
place.  The  main  English  exhibit  is  housed  in  a 
pleasant  Tudor  building  with  some  beautiful  rooms. 
The  Shakespeare  exhibit  of  editions  and  portraits  is 
most  interesting  for  those  who  like  that  sort  of  thing; 
a  fine  collection  of  original  Beardsley  drawings  has 
been  lent  by  Mr.  Lane;  the  Caxtons  are  coming; 
there  are  admirable  specimens  of  the  works  of  the 
Kelmscott,  Riccardi,  Florence,  and  other  presses; 
there  is  a  gallery  of  Medici  prints  unsurpassed  by 
any  colour-reproductions  in  the  exhibition  (the  print 
of  the  Dresden  Van  Eyck  triptych  is  the  most  com- 
pletely satisfying  colour-print  I  have  ever  seen) ;  and 
the  elaborate  bindings  by  Riviere's,  the  Oxford 
Press,  and  other  establishments  are  not  inferior  even 
to  the  exquisite  leather  bindings  by  Noulhac  and  R. 
Kieffer  shown  in  the  French  building.  Everything 
our  officials  could  have  done  has  been  done  to  per- 
fection; and  the  special  exhibits  have  been  very  well 
chosen.  Where  we  fall  sadly  short  is  in  the  ordi- 
nary book  of  commerce. 

I  cannot  but  think  that  the  English  publishers  who 
have  taken  stalls  —  and,  of  course,  the  selection  of 
exhibits  here  had  to  be  left  to  the  publishers  them- 
selves —  could  have  brought  together  a  more  at- 
tractive-looking lot  of  books  than  they  have  done. 
Most  of  them  —  I  mention  no  names  —  seem  to 
have  bundled  together  their  books  without  any  con- 

71 


Books  in  General 

sideration  either  of  the  contents  or  of  the  appear- 
ance of  the  volumes.  Of  course  there  are  English 
publishers  who  have  no  fine  books  and  few  decent- 
looking  books  on  their  lists;  but  some  of  the  speci- 
mens at  Leipzig  look  almost  like  remnants  which  it 
is  hoped  to  sell  off  to  visitors.  But  even  if  all  the 
English  publishers  had  shown  all  their  best  books, 
and  none  of  their  worst,  they  would  still  have  been 
put  in  the  shade  by  the  Germans.  Even  the  French 
publishers  —  whose  achievements  in  typography  and 
in  illustration  have  been  great  —  are  not  now  fit  to 
be  mentioned  in  the  same  breath  as  the  Germans. 

The  German  exhibits  are  a  revelation.  The  mid- 
Victorian  tradition  in  print  and  design  —  which 
was  so  tenacious  in  Germany  —  has  now  been  al- 
most completely  abandoned.  I  don't  suggest  that  all 
German  books  are  more  presentable  than  English 
ones.  Scientific  works,  theology,  and  shilling  fiction 
are  equally  ugly  in  both  countries.  But  there  are  to- 
day in  Berlin,  Leipzig,  and  Munich  at  least  a  dozen 
firms  publishing  for  the  ordinary  market  books 
whose  average  of  beauty  is  far  higher  than  that 
reached  by  the  books  of  any  considerable  English 
publishing  firm.  Many  thousands  of  really  beauti- 
ful new  books  are  now  being  produced  every  year 
in  Germany;  and  of  what  can  be  done,  especially 
in  the  way  of  making  cheap  books  look  presentable, 
our  own  publishers  have  no  idea.  There  is,  of 
course,  a  much  larger  educated  reading  public  in 
72 


May  1914:     The  Leipzig  Exhibition 

Germany  than  in  England.  In  every  bookshop  you 
are  confronted  by  volumes  of  Dehmel,  Hofmanns- 
thal,  and  other  writers  who,  were  they  Englishmen, 
would  never  reach  large  circles  of  readers  in  their 
lifetimes.  Anthologies  of  contemporary  German 
poets  sell  literally  by  tens  of  thousands ;  and  you  can 
even  get  an  infinite  variety  of  doses  of  classical  and 
modern  authors  by  dropping  pennies  into  automatic 
machines  on  the  stations.  This  much  may  be  ad- 
mitted: that  there  is  a  larger  literary  public  and 
more  interest  in  contemporary  art,  literary  and  pic- 
torial. But,  even  granting  all  that,  the  German  pub- 
lishers in  meeting  the  market  have  shown  a  taste, 
and  above  all  an  enterprise  (sometimes  reaching 
audacity,  no  doubt) ,  which  most  of  our  own  publish- 
ers have  never  revealed  in  the  slightest  degree. 

To  give  a  full  account  of  the  show  is  beyond  my 
ability,  desire,  and  space.  But  in  looking  at  the 
latest  products  of  commercial  colour-printing  in  the 
French  pavilion  I  was  struck  by  the  extraordinary 
divorce  between  craftsmanship  and  taste  in  modern 
industry.  Here  were  some  of  the  vilest  pictures  (I 
don't  mean  morally)  ever  moulded  by  the  mind  of 
man ;  yet  the  experts  were  raving  over  them  as  being 
the  last  word  in  their  own  kind  of  colour-process. 
Needless  to  say,  the  exhibition,  not  being  half  over, 
is  not  yet  completely  ready.  The  Italian  pavilion, 
when  I  was  at  the  exhibition,  could  not  be  entered  at 
all,  and  there  were  other  lacunae  all  over  the  place. 

73 


Books  in  General 

This  is  the  kind  of  thing  that  makes  the  whole  world 
kin. 

Amongst  the  German  authors  whose  portraits 
grace  the  walls  of  the  exhibition  is  Mr.  George 
Bernard  Shaw.  They  have  naturalized  him,  like 
Shakespeare,  and  the  next  thing  will  certainly  be 
a  statue  at  Weimar. 


74 


The  Mantle  of  Sir  Edwin 

I  HAVE  just  spent  three  days  reading  Mr.  E.  G. 
Harman's  Edmund  Spenser  and  the  Imperson- 
ations of  Francis  Bacon,  published  by  the  firm 
of  Constable.  There  are  books  which  he  who  runs 
may  read;  there  are  also  books  from  which  he  who 
reads  will  run.  This  to  me  comes  into  neither  cate- 
gory. It  Is  very  large  and  crowded  with  most  com- 
plicated detail;  it  is,  though  quite  competently  writ- 
ten, devoid  of  literary  grace;  and  it  supports  a  mon- 
strous thesis  with  arguments  many  of  which  are  of 
staggering  absurdity.  Yet  in  point  of  deadly  fasci- 
nation it  vies  with  the  basilisk.  It  is  a  monument  of 
the  "  scientific  method."  The  author's  learning  and 
industry  are  terrifying;  his  tone  seems  completely 
dispassionate;  he  proceeds  from  discovery  to  discov- 
ery with  mild  ruthlessness ;  and  not  the  most  uncom- 
promising of  Wospolus  was  ever  more  sternly  re- 
solved to  embrace  logical  conclusions.  His  chief 
fault  is  that  his  premises  are  usually  arbitrary  or 
quite  insufficient;  but  the  objective  charm  of  his  mas- 
sive progress,  as  of  a  steam-roller,  from  stage  to 
stage,  Is  not  affected  by  this. 

Mr.  Harman  does  not  in  this  volume  discuss  In 
detail  Bacon's   authorship   of  Shakespeare's  plays. 

75 


Books  in  General 

He  assumes  that.  He  assumes  also  that  Bacon  did 
publish  literature  under  the  rose  and  that  he  did 
employ  impersonators;  his  reasons  being  that  he  had 
to  express  his  feelings  and  that  acknowledgement  of 
authorship  would  have  damaged  his  prospects  of  po- 
litical promotion.  This  much  granted,  Mr.  Har- 
man  looks  around  for  writings  in  which  he  thinks  he 
can  detect  traces  of  Bacon  and  examines  the  evidence 
for  their  reputed  authorships.  He  does  not  descend 
to  the  puerile  level  of  the  late  Sir  Edwin  Durning- 
Lawrence,  with  his  "  Hie,  Hzec,  Hog."  He  says 
nothing  of  cryptogram.  But  in  case  after  case  he 
finds  ( I )  that  there  are  marks  of  Baconian  thought 
and  language,  (2)  that  allegorical  references  to  Ba- 
con's political  disappointments  may  be  found,  (3) 
that  documentary  evidence  supporting  accepted  au- 
thorships is  very  slight.  Nothing  stops  him. 
Where  there  is  a  real  resemblance  in  style  things  are 
easy.  Where  there  are  marked  differences  we  are 
asked  to  note  the  fact  that  Bacon's  method  enabled 
him  to  write  in  a  variety  of  styles — as  though  seri- 
ous writers  expressing  their  inmost  selves  could  put 
on  styles  like  trousers.  If  somebody  has  borne  wit- 
ness that  an  Elizabethan  wrote  his  own  works,  then 
that  somebody  was  in  the  plot  too. 

As  to  Spenser,  with  whom  Mr.  Harman  chiefly 
deals,  one  is  certainly  struck  with  the  paucity  of  the 
evidence  for  him.  We  know  less  about  him  than  we 
know  about  Shakespeare;  and  his  biographers  have 
76 


The  Mantle  of  Sir  Edwin 

had  to  rely  almost  entirely  upon  "  internal  evidence  " 
drawn  from  his  works.  But  personally  I  must  say 
that  I  prefer  their  methods  to  Mr.  Harman's.  He, 
analysing  exhaustively  the  plot  of  the  Faerie  Queene, 
with  its  Britomarts,  Arthegalls,  and  Blatant  Beasts, 
finds  a  knowledge  of  court  life  that  could  not  be  pos- 
sessed by  Spenser,  who  lived  in  Ireland  and  was  (ac- 
cording to  him)  an  ex-Board  School  boy  in  a  small 
Civil  Service  job  —  which  is  at  any  rate  politer  than 
"  drunken,  illiterate  clown."  This  is  question-beg- 
ging; but  what  shall  we  say  of  the  assumption  that 
if  Spenser  had  written  the  poem  the  rivers  of  Ire- 
land would  have  been  described  as  fully  as  the  rivers 
of  England?  Why  should  the  emigrant  Civil  serv- 
ant know  anything  about  the  rivers  of  Ireland?  As 
far  as  that  goes,  there  is  one  slip  in  the  description 
of  the  rivers  of  England  which  indicates  to  my  mind 
that  the  author  relied  on  some  inaccurate  map  for 
his  information  about  them.  The  Baconian  author- 
ship forces  Mr.  Harman  to  the  conclusion  that  some 
of  Spenser's  sonnets  were  written  by  Bacon  when 
he  was  eight  or  nine  years  old.  But  Mr.  Harman 
is  a  strong  man.  After  all,  Mozart  was  a  pre- 
cocious child,  so  why  not  Bacon?  He  does  not 
shrink  from  this  any  more  than  he  shrinks  from 
arguing  that  any  book  or  letter  which  favourably 
mentions  one  of  Bacon's  cryptic  works  must  also 
have  been  written  or  instigated  by  him.  They  must 
have  been  written  by  him,  and,  this  granted,  internal 
corroboration   must   be    sought    for.     Anything   is 

77 


Books  in  General 

good  enough  for  this  purpose.  Mr.  Harman  even 
finds  evidence  in  the  occurrence  in  several  "  Bacon- 
ian "  works  of  the  phrase  "  golden  wyres  "  as  ap- 
plied to  the  Queen's  hair.  If  he  would  read  the 
body  of  Elizabethan  lyrics,  or  even  extracts  of  them 
in  such  a  contemporary  anthology  as  England's 
Parnassus,  he  would  find  that  an  Elizabethan  poet 
could  no  more  help  comparing  a  lady's  Hayre  to 
Golden  Wyres  than  he  could  help  likening  her  Teares 
to  Pearles  or  her  Brests  to  luorie. 

But  there  is  no  space  here  for  detailed  examina- 
tion. It  is  enough  to  yield  oneself  to  the  pleasure 
of  following  the  Harmanian  trail.  I  have  noted  the 
works  which  in  the  course  of  his  narrative  or  in  foot- 
notes he  ascribes  to  Bacon.  The  Authorized  Ver- 
sion of  the  Bible  is  not  mentioned.  But,  apart  from 
his  voluminous  acknowledged  writings,  Bacon  wrote 
the  works  of  Spenser  (including  the  Faerie  Queene, 
the  longest  poem  in  the  world,  which  Bacon  pub- 
lished before  he  was  out  of  his  twenties)  ;  the  works 
of  Shakespeare;  practically  the  whole  body  of  Eliza- 
bethan poetical  criticism  (including  Webbe's  Dis- 
course of  Poesie,  Puttenham's  Art  of  Poesie,  Sid- 
ney's Apologie,  Daniel's  A  Defence  of  Ryme,  and 
Meres's  Palladis  Tamia)  ;  many  of  the  poems  of 
Gascoigne  (written  by  Bacon  before  he  was  twelve)  ; 
certain  works  imputed  to  Nashe,  Greene,  and  Ga- 
briel Harvey;  the  poems  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  and 
the  Last  Fight  of  the  '^ Revenge" ;  the  works  of 
78 


The  Mantle  of  Sir  Edwin 

Essex;  Sidney's  Arcadia  and  Astrophel  and  Stella 
(with  this  key  Bacon  unlocked  his  heart)  ;  Lyly's 
Euphues  (a  long  book)  ;  Bryskett's  Discourse  of 
Civil  Life;  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert's  Discourses  and 
the  account  of  his  last  voyage;  Leicester's  Common- 
wealth and  Leicester's  Ghost;  and  other  minor 
scraps.  If  this  be  all  correct,  we  shall  have  to  re- 
vise our  opinion  of  the  Elizabethan  time  as  a  time 
replete  with  various  genius.  All  we  shall  be  able 
to  refer  to  now  will  be  "  the  spacious  Bacon  of 
great  Elizabeth." 

An  enormous  number  of  people  —  including  sup- 
posed writers  and  their  relations  —  must  have  been 
in  the  secret.  Sometimes  they  must  have  marvelled 
at  Bacon's  extraordinary  behaviour,  as  for  instance 
when  he  wrote  for  Raleigh  a  laudatory  poem  on  the 
Queen: 

"  Bacon  (who,  in  my  opinion,  Is  the  author  of 
the  poem)  makes  use  of  the  opportunity  in  taking  up 
the  personality  of  Ralegh  to  express  his  own  feel- 
ings. He  was  undoubtedly  most  unhappy  at  his  ex- 
clusion from  access  and  the  waning  of  all  his  hopes 
of  advancement.  This  is  what  is  reflected  under  the 
disguise  of  Ralegh's  loss  of  favour  in  the  poem." 

They  must  have  wondered  how  on  earth  Bacon 
expected  his  grievances  to  be  remedied  If  his  com- 
plaints were  published  over  another  man's  name, 

79 


Books  in  General 

and  why,  if  Raleigh  could  address  poems  to  the 
Queen  in  propria  persona  without  loss  of  caste, 
Bacon  could  not  do  the  same.  But  no  doubt  most 
of  them,  for  many  were  impecunious,  did  not  allow 
such  questions  to  bother  them  much.  They  were 
content  to  take  Bacon's  bribes  for  the  use  of  their 
names.  What  he  must  have  spent  in  subsidies  to 
sham  authors  one  gasps  to  contemplate.  No  won- 
der that  for  years  he  was  in  such  financial  straits,  and 
that  at  one  point  things  came  to  such  a  pass  with  him 
that  he  was  arrested  for  debt. 


80 


"The  Cattle  of  the  Boyne" 

I  HAVE  referred  before  to  the  frequency  of  mis- 
prints in  the  penny  Times.  It  does  seem  a 
pity  that  the  conductors  of  the  paper  cannot 
keep  it  up  to  its  old  traditions  in  this  respect.  Last 
week  there  was  a  more  curious  instance  than  usual. 
These  words  appeared: 

"  The  anniversary  of  the  Cattle  of  the  Boyne 
was  celebrated  with  unusual  enthusiasm  throughout 
Canada." 

I  was  so  moved  by  the  report  of  these  zoo- 
logical novelties  that  I  made  a  little  poem  about 
them,  full  of  Celtic  twilight.     It  runs  thus: 

THE  SANDS  OF  BOYNE 

Och,  Geoffrey,  go  and  call  the  Cattle  home, 
And  call  the  Cattle  home. 
And  call  the  Cattle  home, 
Acrost  the  sands  of  Boyne. 
Shure,  ye're  the  bhoy  that's  got  inured  to  foam, 
So  come,  bring  in  the  koine. 

Och,  are  they  fish,  flesh,  fowl  or  good  red  herrings? 
Perhaps  they  are  red  herrings, 

8i 


Books  in  General 

Forlorn  and  wildered  herrings^ 
Strayed  from  their  native  broine, 
This  hapless  party  which  has  lost  its  bearings 
Fornint  the  sands  of  ^Boyne. 

No,  no,  they  have  no  herring  for  their  father. 
The  proof-reader's  their  father, 
A  most  prolific  father 
By  mishap  or  desoign. 
If  this  is  what  wan  penny  means,  I'd  rather 
Stump  up  the  ancient  coin 

Than  daily  find  —  Och  tempora,  Och  Times !  — 
Bad  grammar  in  my  Times 
And  misprints  in  my  Times 
In  ivry  other  loine. 
Capped  by  this  worst  of  typographic  crimes 
"  The  CATTLE  of  the  Boyne  "/ 

But  perhaps  one  ought  not  really  to  complain  of 
misprints,  even  in  the  Times,  when  they  are  funny. 


8^ 


August  1914 


AND  it  is  less  than  three  months  since  I  was 
writing  complacently  about  the  Leipzig 
book  exhibition!  I  wrote  about  the  ex- 
quisite collections  of  bindings  and  drawings,  the 
bands,  the  parading  crowds  of  peaceful  Germans, 
the  pavilions  of  all  nations  from  Holland  to  Siam, 
and  the  charming  Tudor  structure  erected  by  Britain, 
with  its  long  low  halls  containing  cases  of  Shake- 
speare folios  and  editions  from  the  Kelmscott  Press. 
Enormous  crowds  from  all  over  Europe  would,  it 
was  hoped,  visit  the  exhibition  as  the  summer  wore 
on.  "  August,  of  course,"  said  the  officials  to  me, 
"  will  be  the  month." 

The  buildings  in  the  wide  Street  of  Nations  are 
still  there,  no  doubt.  The  flags,  perhaps,  have  been 
hauled  down,  but  those  files  of  white  wood  and 
plaster  palaces  still  stand  behind  their  flower-beds 
along  the  broad  avenues.  The  crowds  are  dis- 
persed. The  officials  in  charge  of  the  various  build- 
ings have  fled  to  their  respective  domiciles.  The 
cheerful  male  members  of  the  Bavarian  Peasants' 
Band  have  taken  off  their  green  hats  and  put  on  hel- 
mets, left  the  women  behind,  and  gone  off  to  burn 

83 


Books  in  General 

villages  like  their  own,  and  disembowel  sunburnt 
French  peasants  as  naturally  amiable  as  themselves. 
Memories  so  recent  make  the  pit  of  one's  stomach 
sink.  In  May  last  a  German  barber  in  Berlin  had 
his  razor  at  my  throat,  and  when  he  scratched  my 
skin  he  was  most  concerned  and  apologetic. 
"  Nescis,  mi  fili,  quam  parva  sapientia  regitur  mun- 
dus."  The  remark  was  made  by  a  Swedish  states- 
man in  the  eighteenth  century.  Voltaire,  looking 
down  from  heaven  —  if  one  may  risk  his  displeasure 
by  presuming  his  presence  in  so  uncongenial  a 
place  —  must  feel  that  since  the  eighteenth  century 
there  has  been  no  great  change,  and  that  the  human 
race  is  as  horribly  ridiculous  an  institution  as  ever 
it  was. 

But  here  we  are.*  Like  most  other  inhabitants 
of  the  "  civilized  "  world,  I  have  for  the  last  week 
read  no  books,  but  only  newspapers.  Fourteen  a 
day  is  about  my  average,  which  means  nearly  a 
hundred  a  week.  And  nine-tenths  of  them  contain 
nothing  that  one  did  not  know  before.  There  never 
was  a  war,  since  telegraphs  were  invented,  about 
which  news  was  so  scarce.  Almost  every  rumour 
that  comes  through  is  dubious,  and  it  is  invariably 
contradicted.  In  successive  issues  and  even  in  the 
same  issue  of  a  journal  one  reads  that  troops  have 
and  have  not  entered  a  certain  village,  that  some- 
body's neutrality  has  and  has  not  been  violated,  and 

♦  I  have  left  all  this  as  I  wrote  it. —  S.  E. 
84 


August  1914 

that  a  naval  engagement  has  and  has  not  taken  place. 
If  you  go  over  the  eight  pages  of  "  war  news  "  in 
a  daily  and  make  a  summary  of  the  unquestionable 
facts  contained  therein,  as  distinguished  from  the 
doubtful  reports  and  the  office-written  padding,  you 
find  it  could  all  be  got  into  a  paragraph.  We  have 
frequently  heard  that  the  day  of  the  war  corre- 
spondent was  over.  We  heard  it  during  the  Russo- 
Japanese  War  —  of  which  we  certainly  got  very  lit- 
tle news  —  and  we  heard  it  during  the  Balkan  cam- 
paign. But  at  the  moment  of  writing  I  have  scarcely 
seen  a  single  item  regarding  a  single  encounter  which 
looked  indisputable  or  which  appeared  to  come  direct 
from  an  eye-witness.  Almost  all  the  information 
we  have  been  getting  has  come  either  from  rumour 
travelling  across  many  tongues  or  from  official 
sources.  Both  these  founts  of  news  are  great  liars, 
the  former  excelling  in  the  suggest'to  falsi,  and  the 
latter  both  in  that  and  in  the  suppressio  vert. 

The  desperate  straits  in  which  we  have  been  for 
news  could  be  gathered  (if  in  no  other  way)  from 
the  outlandish  places  of  origin  ascribed  to  reports 
that  get  into  print.  Stockholm  informs  one  that  ad- 
vices from  Teheran  report  a  conflict  at  Toul;  and  we 
hear  that  the  Mercure  de  Bruxelles  states  "  on  excel- 
lent authority "  that  something  has  happened  at 
Basle.  Deliberate  fabrication  has  been  at  work  all 
over  the  place.  Our  good  old  friend  the  doctor, 
with  the  cholera  microbes  which  he  puts  into  wells, 

85 


Books  in  General 

even  turned  up  at  the  very  start.  This  mythical 
gentleman  is  at  least  as  old  as  the  Franco-German 
War  of  1870,  and  his  last  appearance  was  in  the 
Balkans.  No  sooner  does  a  war  start  than  one  of 
the  combatants  hastens  to  describe  his  diabolical  ac- 
tivities in  the  hope,  presumably,  of  making  the 
world's  blood  boil  at  the  thought  of  an  "  outrage 
against  humanity." 

The  papers  cannot  be  blamed  for  printing  ru- 
mours, but  they  might  give  the  clearest  indication, 
whenever  possible,  of  the  value  of  their  sources. 
Rumours  before  they  get  into  print  presumably  travel 
in  much  the  same  way  as  after  they  get  into  print. 
Of  how  rapidly  "  news  "  develops  I  had  an  exper- 
ience in  a  club  on  Tuesday  night.  A  late  evening 
paper  printed  a  brief  report,  stating  that  Aberdeen 
doctors  had  gone  to  attend  to  wounded  who  were 
being  landed  at  Cromarty.  Five  minutes  after  I 
had  seen  this,  I  was  told  by  a  member  that  single 
British  and  German  destroyers  had  had  a  brush  off 
the  Scottish  coast.  Five  minutes  after  that  the  ves- 
sels had  expanded  into  flotillas,  and  within  the  hour 
a  club  servant,  with  very  gloomy  face,  remarked  to 
me,  "  I  don't  know  if  you've  heard  it,  sir,  but 
there's  been  a  great  naval  battle  in  the  North  Sea 
and  the  British  Fleet  has  met  with  an  awful  dis- 
aster." With  correspondents  kept  out  of  the  area 
of  hostilities,  it  is  no  wonder  that  by  the  time  reports 
of  occurrences  reach  the  persons  who  send  them  to 
86 


August  1914 

our  newspapers  they  bear  very  little  relation  to  the 
events  (if  any)  which  have  originally  generated 
them.  War  correspondents  in  Europe  to-day  seem 
to  be  able  to  do  little  more  than  sit  in  friendly  for- 
eign capitals  and  send  home  little  bits  of  news  out 
of  the  local  papers.  And  if  we  want  a  really  accu- 
rate and  full  description  of  the  big  battles,  especially 
the  big  naval  battles,  of  the  future  we  shall  usually 
have  to  wait  until  peace  allows  combatants  to  publish 
such  books  as  the  Japanese  Human  Bullets,  describ- 
ing the  attack  on  Port  Arthur,  and  those  vivid  Rus- 
sian books  which  told  the  story  of  Rozhdestvensky's 
voyage  to  the  China  Sea  with  his  mouldy  squadron 
and  the  magnificent  and  pitiful  end  of  it  at 
Tsushima.  But  of  no  great  modern  war  will  the 
whole  truth  ever  be  properly  known.  Forces  work 
over  such  vast  areas  that  full  information  is  im- 
possible to  collect. 


«7 


Mrs.  Barclay  sees  it  through 

OVER  the  turmoil  of  a  world  in  arms 
There  floats  a  rich  indomitable  coo  .  .  . 
'Tis  Barclay.  .  .  .   Though  excursions  and 
alarms 
Torture  the  firmament,  though  Wilhelm  II 
In  shining  armour  waits  his  Waterloo, 
Though  on  all  sides  the  blood  rains  down  in  torrents 
Love's  interests  still  are  in  safe  hands  with  Florence. 

JVhat  though  the  rest  of  us  are  turning  tail. 
Assured  by  those  who  have  a  right  to  speak 

That  only  Patriotism  has  a  sale? 

She  knows  Love's  drawing-power  remains  unique; 
Her  books  need  never  be  postponed  a  week; 

Sure  of  her  subject,  certain  of  her  vogue, 

She  has  no  need  to  adjourn,  much  less  prorogue. 

Business   as   usual.     Yet   who   knows,   who   knows 
Whether  she  has  not  chosen  the  better  part. 

Swelling  the  proud  full  sail  of  her  great  prose 
Still  with  the  gentler  zephyrs  of  the  heart, 
Rather  than  seize  an  Amazonian  dart. 

Leaping  into  the  middle  of  the  fray 

Like  certain  other  poets  of  the  day. 

88 


Mrs.  Barclay  sees  it  through 

Has  Robert  ^Bridges'  success  with  fighting 
Been  such  as  to  encourage  emulation? 

Or  Dr.  Watson's  "  hit  them  in  the  Bight  "-ingf 
Or  the  same  author's  other  lucubration 
(Yet  one  more  blow  for  a  disthressful  nation) 

In  which,  dead  gravelled  for  a  rhyme  for  "  Ireland," 

He  struggled  out  with  "  motherland  and  sireland  "? 

Did  even  the  voice  from  Rudyard  Kipling's  shelf 
Say  anything  it  had  not  said  before? 

And  was  not  Stephen  Phillips  just  himself? 
And  was  not  Newbolt's  effort  on  the  war 
Distinctly  less  effective  than  of  yore? 

And  would  not  German  shrapnel  in  the  leg  be 

Less  lacerating  than  the  verse  of  Beghie? 

When  the  Muse  seized  me,  in  this  manner,  by 
the  hair,  it  was  three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and 
I  had  just  finished  the  new  novel  by  the  author 
of  The  Rosary.  Had  it  been  earlier  I  should  have 
written  more.  But  next  day  the  mouse  of  inspira- 
tion had  fled  to  its  hole;  the  spell  of  the  book  had 
been  dissipated;  my  vision  had  faded  into  the  light 
of  common  day;  and  I  resumed  my  consideration  of 
the  position  of  Przemysl,  a  place  of  which,  until 
this  week,  I  had  never  heard.  But  what  a  fascina- 
tion the  book  exercised  while  one  was  reading  it  I 
I  can  well  understand  why  Mrs.  Barclay  commands 
a  greater  audience  than  perhaps  any  other  living 
writer.     She  can  beat  the  basilisk  at  its  own  game. 

89 


Books  in  General 

The  reader  is  swept  away  with  a  rush  of  strong 
emotion  at  the  very  start.  A  tall,  reticent,  bronzed 
man  arrives  by  the  boat  train  at  Charing  Cross. 
Thrown  over  by  a  woman,  he  has  been  abroad  for 
ten  years,  nursing  his  grief  and  creating  a  reputation 
as  a  novelist.  No  sooner  does  he  get  to  the  station 
than  he  extracts  from  the  coy  bookstall  clerk  a  con- 
fession that  to  him  the  books  of  Rodney  Steele  are 
the  best  in  the  world.  Lump  in  the  throat  number 
one;  and  a  sovereign  in  the  pocket  of  the  clerk. 
Steele  leaves  the  station  to  drive  to  a  flat  a  friend  has 
left  him.  Oh,  the  fragrance  and  glitter  of  dear  old 
smoky  London  I  Oh,  the  beauty  of  the  Queen  Vic- 
toria Memorial! 

"  Mysterious  through  the  gloom,  he  saw  the  na- 
tion's fine  memorial  to  a  deathless  memory.  The 
gush  of  green  waters,  the  golden  figure  at  the  sum- 
mit, needed  sunlight  for  their  better  seeing.  But 
clear  through  the  orange  darkness  gleamed  the  white 
marble  majesty  of  England's  Great  Queen. 

"  Rodney  Steele  lifted  his  hand  in  reverent  salute 
as  he  passed.  .  .  . 

"  *  Lest  we  forget !  '  quoted  Rodney  Steele  as  he 
looked  at  the  majestic  marble  figure,  throned  outside 
the  palace  above  the  rushing  waters.  '  Yet  —  could 
we,  who  really  remember,  ever  forget?  '  " 

The  rest  of  the  book  tells  how  he  was  wooed 
and  won  by  his  old  love,  now  a  widow.  She  had 
90 


Mrs.  Barclay  sees  it  through 

deserted  him  under  a  misapprehension  and  was  re- 
solved to  recover  him.  She  therefore  took  the  next 
flat  to  his  —  or  rather  to  her  brother's,  which  Steele 
was  occupying.  She  had  heard  that  owing  to  a 
change  of  telephone  numbers  her  brother  was  con- 
stantly being  rung  up  by  mistake  for  a  Hospital. 
One  night  therefore  Steele  was  rung  up  and  a  Kind 
Voice  asked  for  the  Matron.  The  voice  reminded 
him  of  Madge.  He  began  to  feel  so  lonely  that 
he  willed,  with  all  his  will,  that  the  unknown  Kind 
Voice  should  ring  him  up  again. 

"  '  Speak  to  me  again,'  he  said,  '  you,  you  spoke  to 
me  last  night.  Speak  to  me  again.  What  wait  I 
for?  I  wait  for  you!  Just  now  —  in  my  utter 
loneliness,  in  my  empty  solitude  —  I  wait  for 
you.'  .  .  . 

"  The  distant  clock  slowly  chimed  a  quarter  past 
the  hour  of  ten;  and —  as  that  sound  died  away  — 
the  bell  of  the  telephone  rang." 

This  time  he  made  the  Kind  Voice  promise  to 
ring  him  up  nightly  in  order  to  console  him  in  his 
loneliness.  The  Kind  Voice  consented.  Ultimately 
on  the  telephone  they  discussed  (he  not  revealing  his 
identity  or  knowing  hers)  his  novels.  This  is  the 
kind  of  thing  they  say  over  the  telephone  : 

"  '  The  thing  of  first  importance  is  to  uplift  your 
readers;  to  raise  their  ideals;  to  leave  them  with  a 

91 


Books  in  General 

sense  of  hopefulness,  which  shall  arouse  within  them 
a  brave  optimism  such  as  inspired  Browning's  oft- 
quoted  noble  lines.'  " 

When  finally  he  confesses  to  the  Kind  Voice  that 
his  life  has  been  ruined  by  a  girl  with  whom  he  is 
still  in  love,  Madge  thinks  the  time  ripe  for  an  ap- 
pointment. They  meet.  He  finds  that  the  Kind 
Voice  has  been  Madge  all  the  time  and  he  steels  his 
breast  against  the  woman  who  has  added  deception 
to  her  previous  crime.  But  her  "  gracious  grace- 
fulness "  and  other  qualities  win  in  the  end,  and  we 
finish  at  Christmas  with  Herald  Angels  and  wedding- 
bells. 

Mrs.  Barclay  certainly  has  skill.  Nobody  else 
can  write  a  silly  story  half  so  well  as  she.  Her 
English  is  fluent  and  vivid,  although  loose;  her 
humour  is  genuine  if  not  subtle;  and  she  handles 
her  dialogue,  such  as  it  is,  very  cleverly.  But,  above 
all,  she  knows  how  to  serve  out  the  glamour  and 
the  pathos  with  a  ladle.  The  hero  of  this  book  is 
as  generous  as  he  is  clever.  He  can  conjure;  he  can 
make  seagulls  settle  on  his  shoulder;  and  he  does 
kind  actions  to  widows.  There  are  also  an  heroic 
ex-soldier  who  saved  a  man's  life  at  Spion  Kop;  a 
bishop's  window  brimming  over  with  love  and  remi- 
niscences; and  an  honest,  stupid  Englishman  with  no 
thoughts  of  self.  The  only  bad  character  dies,  and 
the  end  is  a  paean  of  joy.  As  long  as  she  can  keep 
92 


Mrs.  Barclay  sees  it  through 

this  up  Mrs.  Barclay  will  never  lose  her  hold.  In 
spite  of  the  war,  this  book,  I  should  think,  will  sell 
in  millions  and  millions. 

Vorwdrts  reports  that  Dr.  Ludwig  Frank,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Reichstag,  has  been  killed  in  battle  near 
Luneville.  Dr.  Frank,  who  sat  for  Mannheim,  was 
one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Southern  Revisionists.  I 
had  tea  with  him  at  the  Reichstag  last  May.  He 
took  me  into  the  Strangers'  Gallery  of  the  House, 
where  I  heard  Dr.  Liebknecht  makes  one  of  his  anti- 
armament  speeches,  the  one  in  which  he  incidentally 
accused  a  Prussian  general  of  negotiating  sales  of 
decorations.  It  seems  very  remote  now.  Dr. 
Frank  was  barrister;  a  big  Jew  with  a  heavy,  hand- 
some face  —  sallow  skin,  aquiline  nose,  black  mous- 
tache, strong  chin,  dominating  eyes.  His  romantic 
air  —  he  was  supposed  to  resemble  Lassalle  —  made 
him  very  popular  in  the  rich  Jewish  salons  of  Berlin. 
He  was  a  strong  man,  and  one  would  have  said  an 
ambitious  one.  But  a  middle-class  man  who  enters 
the  German  Socialist  Party  sacrifices  so  much  that 
he  ipso  facto  clears  himself  of  the  suspicion  of  mere 
ambition. 


93 


A  Topic  of  Standing  Interest 

THE  Oxford  University  Press  has  just  is- 
sued a  beautiful  little  edition  of  Erasmus's 
Praise  of  Folly,  with  a  good  reproduction 
of  Quentin  Matsys'  portrait  of  Erasmus  as  a  front- 
ispiece. The  last  edition  of  the  Encomium  Moria 
with  which  I  am  familiar  is  that  issued  in  1887  by  the 
firm  of  Hamilton,  Adams.  It  had  a  binding  which 
did  not  please,  but  contained  Holbein's  interesting 
illustrations.  Whether  any  considerable  sale  of  the 
book  is  likely  nowadays  I  very  much  doubt.  Eras- 
mus's humour  was  an  improvement  on  mediaeval  hu- 
mour, which,  except  in  a  few  cases,  cannot  make  a 
modern  man  laugh  save  sometimes  through  the 
brazenness  of  its  indecency.  Erasmus  was  a  child 
of  the  Renaissance,  a  wit,  a  scholar,  a  questioner  of 
all  things,  a  man  of  the  world,  a  revolutionary  con- 
formist. But  there  are  long  dull  passages  in  his 
most  famous  book,  and  many  remarks  that  seemed 
most  daring  to  the  men  of  his  own  time  are  to  us 
platitudinous;  whilst  he  often  labours  some  obvious 
joke  in  the  worst  mediaeval  way. 

At  the  same  time,  any  one  who  cares  to  go  through 
the  book  will  find  occasional  amusement.     Erasmus 

94 


A  Topic  of  Standing  Interest 

had  a  mild  theory  of  the  satirist's  rights.  "  Wits," 
said  he,  "  have  always  been  allowed  this  privilege, 
that  they  might  be  smart  upon  any  transactions  of 
life,  if  so  be  their  liberty  did  not  extend  to  railing  " ; 
and  he  disclaimed  a  desire  to  imitate  Juvenal  by 
"  raking  into  the  sink  of  vices  to  procure  a  laughter." 
With  these  qualifications,  he  let  out  all  around  him 
with  some  vigour.  The  personification  of  Folly  is 
rather  feebly  sustained,  though  the  character  is  pleas- 
antly introduced  with  the  sentence:  "  I  was  born 
neither  in  the  floating  Delos  nor  on  the  frothy  sea, 
nor  in  any  of  the  privacies  where  too  forward  moth- 
ers are  wont  to  retire  for  undiscovered  delivery." 
But  the  obiter  dicta  on  various  classes  of  men  who 
have  often  been  the  butts  of  satirists  since  his  day 
are  still  entertaining  and  must  in  his  own  time  have 
been  shocking.  He  refers  to  priests  as  "  wisely  fore- 
seeing that  the  people,  like  cows,  which  never  give 
down  their  milk  so  well  as  when  they  are  gently 
stroked,  would  part  with  less  if  they  knew  more, 
their  bounty  proceeding  only  from  a  mistake  of 
charity."  He  speaks  of  "  The  Carthusians,  which 
order  alone  keeps  honesty  and  piety  among  them, 
but  really  keeps  them  so  close  that  nobody  ever  yet 
could  see  them,"  and  he  is  especially  down  on  the 
scholastic  theologians.  Sterne,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, described  a  dispute  "  as  to  whether  Gpd  could 
make  a  nose  as  big  as  the  steeple  of  Strasburg." 
This  is  scarcely  a  caricature  of  the  kind  of  discussion 
ridiculed  by  Erasmus : 

95 


Books  in  General 

"  Whether  this  proposition  is  possible  to  be  true; 
that  the  first  person  of  the  Trinity  hated  the  second? 

"  Whether  God,  who  took  our  nature  upon  him 
in  the  form  of  a  man,  could  as  well  have  become  a 
woman,  a  devil,  a  beast,  an  herb,  or  a  stone.  And 
were  it  possible  that  the  Godhead  had  appeared  in 
the  shape  of  an  inanimate  substance,  how  he  then 
should  have  preached  his  gospel?  Or  how  have 
been  nailed  to  the  cross?  Whether  if  St.  Peter  had 
celebrated  the  eucharist  at  the  same  time  our  Saviour 
was  hanging  on  the  cross,  the  consecrated  bread 
would  have  been  transubstantiated  into  the  same 
body  that  remained  on  the  tree?  " 

Word-spinning  he  detested,  and  he  refers  the 
Nominalists,  the  Realists,  the  Thomists,  the  Albert- 
ists,  the  Scotists,  etc.,  to  the  primitive  disciples  who 
were  "  well  acquainted  with  the  Virgin  Mary,  yet 
none  of  them  undertook  to  prove  that  she  was  pre- 
served immaculate  from  original  sin." 

"  The  disciples  baptized  all  nations,  and  yet  never 
taught  what  was  the  formal,  material,  efficient,  and 
final  cause  of  baptism,  and  certainly  never  dreamt  of 
distinguishing  between  a  delible  and  an  indelible 
character  in  this  sacrament." 

Chaucer,  with  his  observations  about  relics  and 
"  pigges  bones,"  and  the  novelists  who  never  hesi- 
tated to  put  friars  in  the  most  ignominious  positions 

96 


A  Topic  of  Standing  Interest 

(e.  g.  in  chimneys  and  under  tables)  had  made  sport 
of  the  clergy,  but  Erasmus's  particular  method  of 
battering  current  theology  had  not  been  so  devastat- 
ingly  employed  since  Lucian.  He  showed,  like  Rab- 
elais, that  it  is  possible  to  reconcile  the  profession 
of  Christianity  with  something  of  what  a  recent 
writer  calls  "  the  old  Voltairean  love  of  humanity." 

Erasmus  made  the  familiar  sport  of  lawyers  and 
pedantic  critics.  He  would  have  agreed  with 
Sterne :  "  Of  all  the  cants  which  are  canted  in  this 
canting  world  —  though  the  cant  of  hypocrites  may 
be  the  worst  —  the  cant  of  crticism  is  the  most  tor- 
menting."    "  When  any  of  them,"  he  says, 

"  has  found  out  who  was  the  mother  of  Anchises, 
or  has  lighted  upon  some  old  unusual  word,  such 
as  bubsequa,  bovinator,  manticulator,  or  other  like 
obsolete  cramp  terms,  or  can,  after  a  great  deal 
of  poring,  spell  out  the  inscription  of  some  battered 
monument:  Lord!  what  joy,  what  triumph,  what 
congratulating  their  success,  as  if  they  had  con- 
quered Africa,  or  taken  Babylon  the  Great!  " 

It  was  for  such  people's  benefit  that  he  must  have 
made  his  irritating  final  remark:  "  I  hate  a  hearer 
that  will  carry  anything  away  with  him." 

Erasmus  was  the  mildest  of  the  famous  satirists, 
but  he  has  his  place  in  the  great  succession,  though 

97 


Books  in  General 

his  works  cannot  now  compete  for  readableness  with 
those  of  Lucian,  Rabelais,  Swift,  Sterne,  and  Vol- 
taire. Satirists  have  usually  been  considerable 
plagiarists,  and  The  Praise  of  Folly  has  an  impor- 
tant historical  place  in  the  development  of  this  kind 
of  literature.  Richard  Burton  cribbed  a  good  deal 
from  it,  in  spite  of  his  own  drastic  remark  about 
persons  who  "  lard  their  lean  bookes  with  fat  of 
others'  workes  "  and  his  question:  "  If  that  severe 
doom  of  Synesius  be  true  it  is  a  greater  offence  to 
steal  dead  men's  labours  than  their  cloaths,  what 
shall  become  of  most  writers?  "  But  Burton  has  an 
account  on  the  other  side,  for  Sterne  later  on  re- 
printed chunks  of  his  work  almost  literally  without 
any  acknowledgement  whatever. 

The  new  Oxford  edition  gives  a  modernized  re- 
print of  the  Caroline  Version  by  John  Wilson.  In 
the  introduction  Mrs.  P.  S.  Allen  gives  some  interest- 
ing bibliographical  particulars.  Over  forty  editions 
of  the  Encomium  Moria  were  published  in  the  au- 
thor's lifetime;  within  forty  years  of  its  first  Latin 
issue  French,  Italian,  and  English  translations  had 
been  published;  and  later  versions  have  appeared 
in  (amongst  other  languages)  Swedish,  Czech,  Pol- 
ish, and  Modern  Greek. 


98 


Was  Cromwell  an  Alligator? 

SOME  people  —  who  at  least  avoid  the  error 
of  ascribing  the  invention  to  Steele  or  Addi- 
son —  say  that  Abraham  Cowley  was  the  Fa- 
ther of  the  English  Essay.  It  might  alternatively 
be  suggested  that  Q.  Horatius  Flaccus  was  one  of  its 
parents  and  Montaigne  the  other;  Bacon  having,  so 
to  speak,  a  watching  brief  at  the  birth.  But  the 
other  statement  is  true  in  a  sense :  for  though  in 
patches  Bacon  (and  Burton)  anticipated  the  tone 
and  method  of  that  type  of  writing  which  was 
brought  to  its  fullest  perfection  by  Charles  Lamb, 
Cowley  was  the  man  who  fixed  the  type.  His  essays 
have  just  been  republished  in  a  beautiful  little  edition 
of  the  Collected  Prose  Works,  issued  by  the  Oxford 
University  Press,  and  edited  by  Mr.  A.  B.  Gough. 
Mr.  Gough  is  a  most  painstaking  editor,  and  his 
notes  are  abnormally  full.  They  are  so  full  that  one 
feels  that  most  people  who  are  likely  to  acquire  such 
a  book  will  find  nine-tenths  of  them  unnecessary;  but 
one  ought  not  to  grumble  at  that,  since  they  have 
the  complementary  advantage  of  always  supplying 
information  when  one  looks  for  it. 

The  edition  is  especially  to  be  welcomed  as  there 
are  many  persons  capable  of  appreciating  Cowley 

99 


Books  in  General 

who  have  never  come  into  contact  with  him.  "  Who 
now  reads  Cowley?"  Pope  asked  in  1737;  if  the 
question  were  repeated  to-day  you  certainly  would 
not  get  a  forest  of  hands  raised,  even  in  an  audience 
replete  with  pince-nez  and  bulging  brows.  It  was 
Cowley's  misfortune,  as  it  was  his  ambition,  to  be 
known  in  his  own  days  as  one  of  the  greatest  poets 
of  his  time;  when  men  discovered  that  he  was  not 
that,  they  at  once  concluded  that  he  was  nothing  else. 
Not  that  his  poems  are  as  negligible  as  some  critics 
assert;  his  mere  skill  and  neatness  make  him 
worth  reading.  Even  if  he  had,  as  Mr.  Gough 
remarks,  '*  too  little  passion  and  spontaneity  to  be 
a  great  lyric  poet,"  he  was  at  any  rate  a  good  metrist 
and  a  most  admirable  phrasemaker.  But  his  prose 
writings  are  certainly  superior  to  the  others;  and  this 
is  true  not  only  of  the  Essays.  His  Vision  Concern- 
ing Oliver  Cromwell,  for  example,  is  full  of  witty 
and  whimsical  things.  Occasionally  he  employs  very 
drastic  language,  as  when  he  refers  to  the  Protector 
as  an  "  alligator  "  and  when  he  abuses  him  for  medi- 
tating the  calling  in  of  the  Jews.  This  is  how  Cow- 
ley disports  himself.     The  italics  are  mine : 

"  From  which  he  was  rebuked  by  the  universal 
outcry  of  the  Divines,  and  even  of  the  Citizens 
too,  who  took  it  ill  that  a  considerable  number  at 
least  among  themselves  were  not  thought  Jews 
enough  by  their  own  Herod.  And  for  this  design, 
they  say,  he  invented  ...  to  sell  St.  Pauls  to  them 
100 


Was  Cromwell  an  Alligator 

for  a  synagogue,  if  their  purses  and  devotions  could 
have  reacht  to  the  purchase.  And  this  indeed  if  he 
had  done  onely  to  reward  that  Nation  which  had 
given  the  first  noble  example  of  crucifying  their 
King,  it  might  have  had  some  appearance  of  grati- 
tude, but  he  did  it  onely  for  love  of  their  Mammon; 
and  would  have  sold  afterwards  for  as  much  more 
St.  Peters  (even  at  his  own  Westminster)  to  the 
Turks  for  a  Mosquito  [Mosque].  Such  was  his 
extraordinary  Piety  to  God,  that  he  desired  he  might 
be  worshipped  in  all  manners,  excepting  only  that 
heathenish  way  of  the  Common  Prayer  Book." 

But  this  strong  language  is  not  the  strong  language 
of  a  man  whose  breast  is  a  burning  fiery  furnace;  it 
is  the  invective  of  a  man  who  is  amused  by  his  op- 
ponents and  who  regards  them  chiefly  as  pegs  for 
cunning  sentences.  His  hard  words  would  certainly 
have  broken  no  bones;  and  one  can  even  imagine 
that,  in  the  secrecy  of  their  chambers,  the  Puritans 
themselves  —  at  all  events,  the  less  ironsided  of 
them  —  may  have  shaken  their  sides  over  his  char- 
acter-sketch of  the  man  whom  they  doubtless  re- 
ferred to  in  public  as  "  our  great  leader." 

But  if  such  qualities  are  defects  when  a  man  is 
writing  political  tracts  or  attempting  the  higher 
flights  of  poetry,  they  are  invaluable  to  him  if  he  is 
writing  essays.  Cowley's  Essays  —  and  his  Pre- 
faces are  as  good  —  are  most  delightful,  and  they 
have  as  personal  a  turn  as  Lamb's.     They  all,  vir- 

IQI 


Books  in  General 

tually,  have  one  text:  the  Sabine  Farm  text;  the  re- 
tired Urbs  in  Rure  text.  They  speak  of  the  coun- 
try's charms  in  the  ex-townsman's  way;  they  gibe  at 
the  turmoil  and  press  of  cities  in  a  manner  which 
attests  a  still  lively  interest  in  these  contemptible 
things;  they  praise  the  pleasures  of  horticulture,  sol- 
itary meditation,  and  a  Kempis's  "  little  book  in  a 
corner."  Their  learning  is  lightly  worn;  their  lan- 
guage natural;  their  arguments  not  so  serious  as  to 
stand  in  the  way  of  any  jest  that  offers  itself;  and 
many  passages  in  them  might  almost  as  well  have 
been  written  in  1720  or  1820  as  in  1660.  These, 
for  instance; 

"  There  is  no  saying  shocks  me  so  much  as  that 
which  I  hear  often  that  a  man  does  not  know  how 
to  pass  his  Time.  'Twould  have  been  but  ill  spoken 
by  Methusalem  in  the  nine  hundred  sixty  ninth  year 
of  his  Life. 

"  I  have  been  drawn  twice  or  thrice  by  company 
to  go  to  Bedlam,  and  have  seen  others  very  much 
delighted  with  the  fantastical  extravagancie  of  so 
many  various  madnesses,  which  upon  me  wrought 
so  contrary  an  effect,  that  I  always  returned,  not 
only  melancholy,  but  e'en  sick  with  the  sight.  My 
compassion  there  was  perhaps  too  tender,  for  I  meet 
a  thousand  Madmen  abroad,  without  any  perturba- 
tion; though,  to  weigh  the  matter  justly,  the  total 
loss  of  Reason  is  less  deplorable  than  the  total  dep- 
ravation of  it. 
102 


Was  Cromwell  an  Alligator 

**  I  thought  when  I  went  first  to  dwell  in  the 
country,  that  without  doubt  I  should  have  met  there 
with  the  simplicity  of  the  old  Poetical  Golden  Age : 
I  thought  to  have  found  no  inhabitants  there,  but 
such  as  the  Shepherds  of  Sir  Phil.  Sydney  in  Arcadia, 
or  of  Monsieur  d'Urfe  upon  the  Banks  of  Lignon; 
and  began  to  consider  with  myself,  which  way  I 
might  recommend  no  less  to  Posterity  the  Happiness 
and  Innocence  of  the  Men  of  Chertsea ;  but  to  con- 
fess the  truth,  I  perceived  quickly,  by  infallible  dem- 
onstrations, that  I  was  still  in  Old  England. 

*'  The  civilest,  methinks,  of  all  Nations,  are  those 
whom  we  account  the  most  barbarous.  There  is 
some  moderation  and  good  Nature  in  the  Toupin- 
amhaltians  who  eat  no  men  but  their  Enemies,  whilst 
we  learned  and  polite  and  Christian  Europeans,  like 
as  many  Pikes  or  Sharks  prey  upon  everything 
we  can  swallow." 

The  last  sentence  reads,  perhaps,  more  like  a  cer- 
tain living  writer  than  like,  say,  Charles  Lamb. 

The  best  of  Cowley's  Essays  are  Of  My  Self 
and  Of  Greatness.  I  have  no  room  to  quote  them 
at  length.  The  first  —  in  which  he  is  writing  of 
poetry  and  of  his  childhood's  memories  —  is  more 
full  of  feeling  than  is  usual  with  him.  The  other 
is  one  of  the  most  picturesque  pieces  of  light  mor- 
alizing in  the  language,  full  of  what  we  all  call  the 
Playful  Irony  of  the  Gentle  Elia,  as  in  sentences 

103 


Books  in  General 

like:  "  The  Ancient  Roman  Emperours,  who  had  the 
Riches  of  the  whole  world  for  their  Revenue,  had 
wherewithal  to  live  (one  would  have  thought)  pretty 
well  at  ease,  and  to  have  been  exempt  from  the  pres- 
sures of  extream  Poverty";  and  it  describes  the 
pleasures  of  littleness  most  alluringly.  But  some- 
how, in  spite  of  his  assertions,  one  never  quite  be- 
lieves in  the  genuineness  of  his  middle-aged  prefer- 
ence for  "  Prettiness,"  as  against  "  Majestical 
Beauty."  One  suspects  the  existence  in  him  of  a 
disappointed  ambition,  a  hankering  after  action, 
which  frequently  afflict  men  who  are  constitutionally 
fitted  for  nothing  but  looking  on  and  making  charm- 
ing comments.  But  he  had  certainly  been  very 
badly  treated  by  the  Stuart  family,  which  he  had 
faithfully  served.  The  Restoration  gave  him 
neither  employment  nor  money.  It  gave  him,  how- 
ever, a  very  fine  funeral.  Evelyn  says  that  his  cofBn 
was  followed  to  the  Abbey  by  a  hundred  noblemen's 
coaches  and  large  numbers  of  wits,  bishops,  and 
clergymen. 


104 


The  Depressed  Philanthropist 

I  DO  not  see  why  any  one  but  myself  should  be 
interested  in  the  mere  fact  that,  except  in  the 
way  of  casual  reference,  I  have  always  avoided 
writing  a  line  about  Mr.  John  Galsworthy.  But  as 
one's  feelings  commonly  typify  those  of  some  section 
or  other  of  one's  fellows  it  may  be  relevant  to  one's 
purpose.  I  frequently  begin  writing  something 
about  Mr.  Galsworthy  and  then  tear  it  up.  I  con- 
stantly feel  like  abusing  him,  and  am  then  checked  by 
the  thought  that  after  all  he  is  too  good  a  man  to 
go  for.  He  is  a  sensitive  and  humane  man  of  very 
great  intelligence.  He  is  a  conscientious  writer  and 
an  acute  observer.  He  has  a  great  respect  for  truth 
and  a  desire  to  state  it  at  all  costs.  He  detests  pet- 
tinesses, hypocrisies,  and  shams.  On  almost  every 
issue  that  might  arise  I  am  sure  I  should  find  myself 
voting  on  the  same  side  as  he,  though  perhaps  we 
might  differ  in  our  views  of  the  relative  importance 
to  be  attached  to  the  problem  of  World  Peace  and 
that  of  the  hardships  inflicted  by  mandkind  on  ants, 
wasps,  and  bees.  And  yet  as  I  read  his  books  I 
feel  as  if  I  were  in  some  cheerless  seaside  lodging- 
house  on  a  wet  day. 

I  have  just  been  reading  his  new  miscellany  The 
Little  Man.     The  book  does  not  show  his  qualities 

105 


Books  in  General 

at  their  best,  but  it  shows  his  defects  at  their  worst. 
The  principal  contents  are  The  Little  Man  and 
Studies  in  Extravagance.  The  first  is  a  short  play 
showing  how  a  German,  an  American  full  of  altruis- 
tic platitudes,  and  two  self-contained  and  "  proper  " 
English  people  shrink  in  the  most  selfish  and  cow- 
ardly way  from  a  forlorn  baby  suspected  ( falsely,  of 
course,  for  the  sake  of  the  extra  irony)  of  typhus. 
The  "  studies  "  are  examinations  of  various  "  types  " 
such  as  "  The  Artist,"  "  The  Plain  Man,"  "  The 
Housewife,"  "  The  Preceptor,"  and  "  The  Latest 
Thing."  And  there  is  none  of  them  good  —  no, 
not  one.  Mr.  Max  Beerbohm  once  did  a  cartoon 
of  Mr.  Galsworthy  Looking  upon  Life  and  Finding 
it  Foul,  Life  being  represented  as  a  fat  and  ferocious 
goblin  with  horns,  a  forked  tail,  and  teeth  like  a 
wild  boar's.  It  was  just  a  little  wrong.  Mr.  Gals- 
worthy's vision  should  not  have  had  so  much  of  the 
positive  about  it.  He  does  not  find  Life  vigorously 
diabolical,  but  meanly  cruel  and  pallidly  contemp- 
tible. Many  great  men  have  been  gloomy  or  pessi- 
mistic. Mr.  Hardy  is  not  exactly  a  merry  grig, 
Schopenhauer  was  consistenly  disgruntled,  and  the 
man  who  would  look  for  joie  de  vivre  in  Leopardi 
would  look  in  vain.  And  as  Mr.  Galsworthy 
suggests  himself  —  it  is  a  commonplace  —  it  is 
often  the  duty  of  a  serious  contemporary  writer 
to  be  horrifying,  unpleasant,  and  shocking.  The 
regeneration  of  mankind  —  to  continue  the  com- 
monplace —  is  not  possible  if  we  hold  the  view 
io6 


The  Depressed  Philanthropist 

that  things  may  be  done  that  may  not  be  dis- 
cussed, and  that  the  failings  of  man  and  the 
diseases  of  society  should,  as  far  as  possible, 
be  stowed  away  in  the  cupboard,  where  the 
skeletons  are.  What  is  wrong  with  Mr.  Gals- 
worthy is  that  one  cannot  quite  believe  him.  One 
suspects  him  of  cooking  the  evidence.  One  does  not 
mind  a  man  presenting  a  black  view  of  life  if  (a) 
he  is  temperamentally  inclined  to  it  and  can  be  mel- 
ancholy with  a  certain  gusto,  or  (^)  if,  being  a  pro- 
fessed realist,  he  appears  to  have  taken  cognizance 
of  every  aspect  that  has  presented  itself  to  him. 
But  Mr.  Galsworthy  presents  so  one-sided  a  case 
that  we  at  once  suspect  his  bona  fides  and  react 
against  his  views.  It  would  be  unfair  to  classify 
him  with  that  school  of  novelists  who  give  their 
books  titles  like  Dull  Monotony  and  live  up  to  their 
titles  by  giving  a  photographic  reproduction  of  an  in- 
tolerable tedium  peculiar  to,  and  comprehensible  by, 
the  households  which  they  themselves  afflict.  He 
usually  escapes  being  thoroughly  boring  partly  be- 
cause of  his  gift  for  occasionally  happy  and  incisive 
phrase  and  partly  because  here  and  there,  behind  the 
grey  brow  of  the  dejected  Hanging  Judge,  one 
catches  a  gleam  of  something  more  exhilarating  than 
his  expressed  sentiments.  But  he  is  often  very 
nearly  dull,  all  the  same:  for  his  realism  is  often 
bogus.  He  starts  with  an  intention  to  paint  a  cari- 
cature in  greys,  and  a  caricature  which  is  not  amus- 
ing.    Even  in  his  very  well-made  plays  the  char- 

107 


Books  in  General 

acters  are  not,  to  my  mind,  usually  interesting  in 
themselves.  One  does  not  believe  in  them  as  per- 
sons. They  are  just  a  set  of  types,  as  stagy  and 
unreal  as  the  old  stage  figures  of  melodrama, 
though  they  are  called  charwomen,  clerks,  magis- 
trates, and  company  directors  instead  of  being  called 
Irishmen,  highwaymen,  and  wicked  baronets.  His 
plays  argue  cases,  but  they  do  not  present  life  as 
we  know  it.  I  find  the  same  sort  of  unreality  about 
his  prose;  and,  since  the  unreality  takes  the  form  of 
making  mankind  look  utterly  paltry  and  uninterest- 
ing, one  wonders  why  on  earth  a  man  who  has  such 
an  opinion  of  it  bothers  about  it  at  all. 

So  in  The  Little  Man  and  in  these  studies.  All 
these  average  people  do  not  get  a  dog's  chance;  we 
have  all  sinned  and  fall  short  of  the  glory  of  God, 
'but  we  really  are  not  quite  so  dull,  feeble,  and  silly 
as  all  this.  Some  characteristics  —  as  those  of  the 
Plain  Man  —  are  very  cleverly  recorded,  but  the 
whole  of  the  man  is  not  here,  nor  even  the  most  im- 
portant parts  of  him.  As  an  illustration  of  Mr. 
Galsworthy's  pseudo-realistic  method  take  him  on 
the  ground  most  favourable  to  him  —  that  of  the 
beef-and-whisky-fed  sportsman: 

"  What  led  to  him  was  anything  that  ministered 
to  the  coatings  of  the  stomach  and  the  thickness  of 
the  skin  ...  to  be  '  hard  '  was  his  ambition,  and 
he  moved  through  life  hitting  things,  especially 
io8 


The  Depressed  Philanthropist 

balls  —  whether  they  reposed  on  little  inverted  tubs 
of  sand  or  moved  swiftly  towards  him,  he  almost  al- 
ways hit  them,  and  told  people  how  he  did  it  after- 
wards. He  hit  things,  too,  at  a  distance,  through 
a  tube,  with  a  certain  noise.  .  .  ." 

Now,  apart  from  the  fact  that  a  full  and  accurate 
description  of  a  sportsman  would  put  in  many  things 
Mr.  Galsworthy  leaves  out  (e.  g.  some  indication 
that  he  was  a  human  being,  as  we  know  the  species) , 
this  is  not  good,  though  it  is  superficially  plausible 
description,  even  so  far  as  it  goes.  The  plain  state- 
ment that  the  gentleman  played  golf  and  cricket  and 
shot  a  good  deal  would  convey  a  better  idea  of  him 
than  this  specious  circumlocution.  To  say  that  a 
man  is  smoking  a  cigarette  positively  contains  a 
greater  measure  of  suggestion  than  to  say  that  he  is 
inhaling  grey  fumes  through  a  cylinder  of  paper 
filled  with  dried  herbs.  Much  of  Mr.  Galsworthy's 
attack  upon  all  kinds  of  men  and  women,  self-centred 
authors,  idealists  who  oppress  their  wives,  worldly 
women  who  have  never  found  their  souls,  cultured 
people  who  chase  the  new,  and  Philistines  who  run 
away  from  the  new,  has  the  same  sort  of  defect. 
It  is  really  "  guying  "  which  passes  for  photography 
merely  because  it  is  heavy-footed  and  unamusing.  I 
object  to  Mr.  Galsworthy's  ostensible  view  of  life 
partly  because  I  don't  believe  he  takes  it,  and  partly 
because  if  he  did  I  should  think  it  an  absurdly 
unjust  view.     At  heart  a  humanitarian,  he  has  got 

109 


Books  in  General 

into  a  dismal  and  costive  kind  of  literary  method 
which  makes  him  look  like  a  fretful  and  dyspeptic 
man  who  curls  his  discontented  nostrils  at  life  as 
though  It  were  an  unpleasing  smell.  As  Ibsen  used 
so  often  to  remark,  there  is  a  great  deal  wrong  with 
the  drains;  but  after  all  there  are  other  parts  of  the 
edifice. 


no 


A  Polyphloisboisterous  Critic 

I  REMEMBER  —  that  is  to  say,  I  wish  I  re- 
membered, for  I  have  forgotten  most  of  it  — 
a  poem  that  I  used  to  recite  at  my  mother's 
knee.  Its  subject  was  an  antediluvian  man  of  ses- 
quipedalian height,  who  let  out  the  blood  of  an  ich- 
thyosaurus with  a  polyphloisboisterous  shout;  and 
its  claim  to  attention  was  a  plethora  of  polysyllables 
very  embarrassing  to  an  infant,  and  indeed  to  any, 
tongue.  It  was  of  that  poem  that  I  was  reminded 
whilst  reading  European  Dramatists,  by  Archibald 
Henderson. 

Mr.  Henderson,  an  American  professor,  is  not  a 
stranger  to  the  British  public.  It  was  he  who  pro- 
duced, a  few  years  ago,  a  biographical  study  of  Mr. 
Bernard  Shaw  so  vast  that  a  single  copy  might  well 
have  served  —  were  not  Mr.  Shaw  still  happily  with 
us  —  as  Mr.  Shaw's  tombstone.  The  work,  indeed 
(to  use  the  phrase  Mr.  Henderson  himself  applies 
to  a  play  of  Strindberg's) ,  was  "  colossal  in  its  in- 
commensurability." It  was  the  kind  of  book  one 
had  thought  could  only  be  produced  by  a  large  com- 
mittee of  Chinese  scholars;  and  although  it  did  not 
lead  one  to  respect  the  author's  powers  of  judging 
the  relative  importance  of  his  various  facts,  it  at 

III 


Books  in  General 

least  compelled  one  to  admire  his  colossal  energy  and 
his  incommensurable  supply  of  these  facts.  From 
European  Dramatists  one  gets  precisely  the  same 
feeling.  Parts  of  the  book  have  appeared  in  jour- 
nals published  in  Boston  and  in  Berlin,  in  Stuttgart 
and  in  Stockholm,  in  Helsingfors,  Paris,  New  York, 
and  Ghent.  And  one  may  be  sure  that  Mr.  Hen- 
derson could  have  talked  to  the  editors  of  all  these 
papers  and  beaten  all  of  them  hollow  in  knowledge 
of  the  modern  literature  of  their  respective  countries. 
The  actual  subjects  of  his  papers  are  familiar 
enough:  Strindberg,  Ibsen,  Shaw,  Maeterlinck,  Gran- 
ville Barker,  and  Wilde.  But  in  discussing  them  he 
shows  an  amazing  acquaintance  with  everybody  who 
has  recently  written  anything  in  any  country.  He 
can  refer  you  to  the  December  19 13  issue  of  the 
Przemysl  Review;  he  can  tell  you  what  the  Servian 
critic,  Ivan  Peckitch,  thinks  of  the  Finnish  poet, 
D.  D.  Bilius.  He  knows  all  about  everything, 
though  one  is  not  quite  sure  that  he  knows  anything 
else.  But  what  chiefly  pleases  one  about  him  is  not 
so  much  what  he  says  as  the  charming  way  he  says 
it.  Like  Hudibras,  he  cannot  ope  his  mouth  but 
out  there  flies  a  trope.  Everything  happens  with 
him  in  metaphors;  people  are  always  digging  into 
soils,  moulding  things  in  fires  or  clothing  them  in 
vestures.  And  above  all  he  is  polysyllabic  and  ro- 
tund of  speech. 

He  begins  well  with  Strindberg,  of  whose  first 
112 


A  Polyphloisboisterous  Critic 

married  years  he  observes  that  they  "  were  undoubt- 
edly happy  —  certainly  in  the  passional  sense,  if  not 
in  the  restful  consciousness  of  hallowed  union." 
"  In  1886,"  he  proceeds,  "  Strindberg  began  to  be 
obsessed  with  the  monomania  of  animadversion 
against  the  female  sex."  Later,  "  goaded  by  titanic 
ambition,  he  cast  off  the  shackles  of  provinciality  for 
the  freedom  of  cosmopolitanism" — i.e.  he  trav- 
elled. Ibsen  and  Strindberg  were  "  so  antipodal  in 
temperament,  yet  so  cognate  in  the  faculties  of  in- 
tuitive perception  and  searching  introspectiveness." 
One  of  Strindberg's  works  blurs  the  vision  of  the 
average  spectator,  "  with  its  kinetoscopic  hetero- 
geneity of  spiritual  films  ":  Peer  Gynt  (on  the  other 
hand,  shall  I  say?)  stood  for  "  the  disciplinary  bank- 
ruptcy of  laxity."  "  Concretizes  "  and  "  inscena- 
tion  "  are  the  kind  of  words  he  rejoices  in,  but  per- 
haps two  or  three  longer  extracts  will  better  illus- 
trate the  quality  of  his  style : 

"  To  peep  into  the  workshop  of  the  great  master's 
brain  and  assist  at  the  precise  balancing  of  the  argu- 
ments pro  and  con,  to  observe  how  an  idea  first  finds 
lodgment  in  the  brain,  and  to  note  the  gradual  sym- 
metrical accretion  of  the  fundamental  nuclei  for  the 
final  creation  ■ —  this  is  a  privilege  that  has  perhaps 
\_sic'\  never  fully  been  realized  by  an  observer. 

"  America  is  young  and  hopeful,  at  least;  it  is  not 
peopled,  we  are  confidently  assured,  with  soul-sick 
tragedians  mouthing  their  futile  protests  against  the 

113 


Books  in  General 

iron  vice  of  environment,  the  ineradicable  scar  of 
heredity,  the  fell  clutch  of  circumstance. 

"  Yet  the  reiterant  ejaculations,  the  hyper-ethereal 
imaginings  of  the  symbolist  manner,  are  the  symp- 
toms of  a  tentative  talent,  not  of  an  authoritative 
art." 

I  don't  think  Professor  Henderson's  remarks  are 
ever  quite  meaningless,  but  I  suspect  that  the  most 
elephantine  of  them,  if  reduced  to  essentials,  would 
be  as  commonplace  as  his  more  comprehensible  state- 
ments that  "  Social  criticism  is  the  sign  manual  of 
the  age,"  and  that  "  the  emancipation  of  woman,  in 
the  completest  sense,  is  on  the  way  " —  which  last 
gets  a  whole  paragraph  to  itself.  But  it  is  pleasant 
to  read  it  all;  to  see  "  Ibsen,  Pinero,  or  Phillips" 
thus  bracketed;  to  learn  that  Wilde's  father  was 
also  "  the  father  of  modern  otology,"  and  to  be 
told  that  Maeterlinck's  "  eternal  prayer  "  is,  "  Oh, 
that  this  too,  too  solid  flesh  would  melt  " !  That  is 
on  page  203;  but  the  effect  is  somewhat  marred  by 
the  fact  that  precisely  the  same  "  cry  "  has  been, 
on  page  37,  attributed  to  Strindberg.  Personally  I 
plump  for  Maeterlinck. 


"4 


''Another  Century,   and 
then  ..." 

THERE  is  a  certain  sort  of  dull  criticism 
which  Dr.  Johnson  admirably  stigmatized 
when  he  said  that  "  there  is  no  great  merit 
in  telling  how  many  plays  have  ghosts  in  them  and 
how  this  ghost  is  better  than  that."  A  great  deal 
of  American  (not  to  speak  of  German)  academic 
criticism  belongs  to  this  category;  and  especially 
those  theses  which  are  written  by  postgraduate  stud- 
ents and  candidates  for  the  doctor's  degree.  These 
persons,  when  they  are  not  exhuming  dead  reputa- 
tions from  well-deserved  sepulchres,  show  an  un- 
canny ingenuity  in  inventing  original  classifications 
and  instituting  unnecessary  comparisons.  But  now 
and  again  such  students  manage  to  produce  some  en- 
lightening piece  of  "  research "  work,  and  The 
French  Revolution  and  the  English  Novel  (Put- 
nams)  is  one  of  the  best  of  its  kind.  It  is  by  Allene 
Gregory;  and  as  I  cannot  tell  from  the  name  whether 
she  is  a  gentleman  or  a  lady,  I  shall  call  him  Miss. 

"  This  study  in  the  tendenz  novel  was  begun  with 
the  idea  of  paralleling  Dr.  Hancock's  book,  The 
French  Revolution  and  the  English  Poets."     That 

115 


Books  in  General 

is  the  first  sentence  of  the  preface,  and  It  has  a  strictly 
academic  flavour  about  it.  The  book  is  a  "  scien- 
tific "  treatise;  it  would  not  have  been  written,  so  to 
say,  either  by  a  French  Revolutionary  or  by  an  Eng- 
lish novelist.  If  it  dealt  with  the  purely  literary 
merits,  which  are  few,  of  its  subjects,  it  would  be  a 
useless  sort  of  book.  But  its  real  purpose  is  to  sup- 
ply a  chapter  to  the  history  of  ideas,  and  especially 
Liberal  political  and  social  ideas.  Many  people 
talk  as  though  they  thought  that  the  novel  which 
canvasses  the  "  problems  "  of  sex,  property,  and  re- 
ligion were  an  invention  of  the  last  thirty  years;  and 
many  others  are  under  the  impression  that  Charles 
Dickens  was  the  first  person  to  use  fiction  —  though 
not,  of  course,  the  first  person  to  employ  fictions  — 
for  the  promotion  of  legislation.  Books  about  God- 
win and  Mary  Wollstonecraft  are  occasionally  writ- 
ten; and  quite  recently  Thomas  Holcroft,  one  of  the 
chief  of  our  Revolutionary  novelists,  was  given  con- 
siderable notice  in  Mr.  Brailsford's  excellent  little 
book  in  the  Home  University  Library.  But,  as  far 
as  my  experience  goes,  there  seem  to  be  very  few 
who  know  that  England  produced  a  century  ago  a 
whole  group  of  novelists  whose  principal  aim  was 
not  to  "  tell  a  straightforward  story  "  or  make  the 
flesh  creep,  but  to  blow  up  the  foundations  of  so- 
ciety with  the  gunpowder  in  the  jam. 

Miss  Gregory's  book  is  very  comprehensive. 
Her  principal  figures  are  Holcroft,  Godwin,  and 
ii6 


"Another  Century,  and  then  .  .  ." 

Robert  Bage;  and  she  gives  synopses  of  all  their 
novels,  with  extracts  illustrating  their  doctrines. 
Holcroft,  one  of  the  most  lovable  figures  in  the  his- 
tory of  English  democracy,  was  the  sort  of  man  who 
is  regarded  as  an  obscure  crank  in  his  lifetime,  then 
forgotten  for  a  time,  and  ultimately  recognized  as  a 
person  of  historical  importance.  He  lived  a  long 
life,  and  harmed  nobody  in  the  course  of  it.  As  a 
stable-boy  in  a  racing  stable  he  read  Addison,  Bun- 
yan,  and  Swift  (whose  tribute  to  the  Houyhnhnms 
must  have  had  a  local  colour  for  him)  ;  he  was  after- 
wards a  strolling  actor,  a  hack  writer,  translator, 
novelist,  and  playwright,  one  of  his  plays  being 
The  Road  to  Ruin.  When  the  Society  for  Consti- 
tutional Reformation  was  raided  Holcroft  was  ar- 
rested with  Thomas  Hardy  and  Home  Tooke,  and 
it  was  alleged  against  him,  as  justification  for  a 
charge  of  high  treason,  that  he  had  extolled  moral 
as  against  physical  force.  His  associates  being  ac- 
quitted, he  was  never  brought  to  trial:  there  comes 
a  point  at  which  even  a  Government  begins  to  feel 
it  is  making  an  ass  of  itself.  Holcroft's  courage 
never  weakened  "  when  Wordsworth,  Coleridge, 
Southey,  and  even  Blake  had  recanted,  and  Godwin 
and  Paine  had  fallen  silent,  and  all  the  world  seemed 
to  have  forgotten  its  vision  of  democracy."  He 
himself  stated  in  terms:  "Whenever  I  have  under- 
taken to  write  a  novel  I  have  proposed  to  myself  a 
specific  moral  purpose."  His  best  novels  are  Hugh 
Trevor  and  Anna  St.  Ives.     In  the  latter  the  hero, 

117 


Books  in  General 

Frank  Henley,  who  shocks  the  orthodox  by  taking 
service  rather  than  self-interest  as  his  guiding  prin- 
ciple, remarks: 

"  Let  men  look  around  and  deny  if  they  can  that 
the  present  wretched  system  of  each  providing  for 
himself  instead  of  the  whole  for  the  whole  does  not 
inspire  suspicion,  fear,  and  hatred.  Well,  well !  — 
another  century,  and  then  ..." 

Just  a  century  has  passed. 

Of  Godwin's  novels  Caleb  JVilliams  is  the  only 
one  that  is  at  all  read  nowadays.  In  spite  of  its 
impossibilities  of  character  and  action,  it  is  a  very 
good  tract,  especially  where  it  deals  with  the  prison 
system.  Miss  Gregory's  extracts  from  Caleb  JVill- 
iams might  have  been  more  profuse;  but  she  gives 
interesting  accounts  of  St.  Leon  and  Fleetwood.  In 
the  first  of  these  a  gentleman  who  possesses  the  phi- 
losopher's stone  breaks  into  long  reflections  on 
"  gold  versus  actual  wealth  " ;  in  the  other  there  are 
eloquent  passages  about  the  horrors  of  child-slavery 
in  factories  which  anticipate  the  factory  reports  of  a 
generation  later,  and  which  were  so  much  in  ad- 
vance of  their  time  that  they  still  hold  good  in  ref- 
erence to  certain  of  the  States  of  America.  God- 
win saw  the  whole  thing  very  clearly:  the  pale, 
emaciated  child  given  the  free  man's  right  of  selling 
his  labour  at  his  own  price  in  the  open  market  and, 
ii8 


"Another  Century,  and  then  .  .  ." 

as  Godwin  put  it,  able  to  earn  salt  to  his  bread  at 
four,  but  unable  to  earn  bread  to  his  salt  at  forty. 
The  placid  Bage's  novels  were  admired  by  Walter 
Scott.  The  most  original  is  Hermsprong,  or  Man 
as  he  is  not,  the  hero  of  which  —  who  enters  civilized 
society  after  being  brought  up  among  the  Red  Indi- 
ans, and  quails  at  the  change  —  criticizes  institutions 
with  something  of  the  tone  of  the  versatile  Mr.  Smi- 
lash  in  An  Unsocial  Socialist. 

Shelley's  Zastrozzi  and  St.  Irvyne  are  only  in- 
teresting, if  interesting  at  all,  because  they  were  writ- 
ten by  their  author.  Miss  Gregory  ploughs  through 
them,  and  also  through  the  novels  of  Charlotte 
Smith,  Mrs.  Inchbald,  and  Mrs.  Opie.  She  has  a 
very  interesting  chapter  on  Mary  WoUstonecraft  and 
the  early  Women's  Rights  authors.  I  find  most  al- 
luring the  bare  mention  made  of  a  certain  Ann 
Plumptre,  a  novelist  of  whom  I  had  never  previously 
heard,  who  admired  Napoleon  enthusiastically.  In 
1810,  according  to  Crabb  Robinson, 

"  she  declared  she  would  welcome  him  If  he  invaded 
England  because  he  would  do  away  with  aristocracy 
and  give  the  country  a  better  government." 

Finally  Miss  Gregory  has  given  space  to  the  anti- 
revolutionary  novelists,  especially  George  Walker 
and  Charles  Lucas,  of  The  Infernal  Quixote.  Ridi- 
cule of  visionaries  and  demagogues  through  the  me- 

119 


Books  in  General 

dium  of  novels  was  a  recognized  sport  then  as  now; 
and  Lucas  instituted  an  elaborate  comparison  be- 
tween political  and  religious  revivalists.  A  good 
bibliography  rounds  off  a  very  laudable  compilation 
which  should  interest  all  persons  of  subversive  views 
and  direct  the  reading  of  the  curious  into  some  very 
agreeable  channels. 


120 


Her  rick 

MR.  F.  W.  MOORMAN  has  edited  for  the 
Oxford  Press  a  new  edition  of  Herrlck, 
which  should  supersede  all  Its  predeces- 
sors. There  Is  very  little  editorial  matter;  Mr. 
Moorman  has  already  written  a  Life,  and  his  intro- 
duction and  notes  have  a  purely  textual  reference. 
The  text,  which  Is  as  satisfactory  a  one  as  we  are 
likely  to  get,  Is  based  upon  a  collation  of  various 
divergent  copies  of  the  first  edition;  for  Herrlck  ap- 
pears to  have  hung  about  the  printer's  making  altera- 
tions whilst  the  sheets  were  going  through  the  press. 
And  a  full  list  Is  given  of  variants  which  occur  in 
other  printed  copies  of  some  of  the  poems  and  in 
MSS.,  of  which  the  editor  records  several  which 
have  not  previously  been  dealt  with. 

Any  one  who  regards  Herrlck  as  an  unsophisti- 
cated warbler  pouring  forth  profuse  strains  of  un- 
premeditated art  may  study  these  variants  and  cor- 
rect himself.  Mr.  Moorman  —  I  suppose  he  has 
sufficient  reason,  though  he  leaves  one  to  guess  what 
It  Is  —  assumes  that  the  versions  In  MSS.  and  antho- 
logies, etc.,  Including  those  published  after  the  Hes- 
perides,  are  all  earlier  than  the  versions  In  the  Hes- 
perides.  Now  and  then  one  Is  sorry  that  this  should 
be  so,  as  when  the  presumably  earlier 

121 


Books  in  General 

And  night  will  come  when  men  will  swear 
Time  has  spilt  snow  upon  your  haire, 

is  changed  into 

And  time  will  come  when  you  shall  weare 
Such  frost  and  snow  upon  your  haire. 

But  almost  invariably  the  changes  are  improve- 
ments; and  they  are  exceedingly  numerous.  Some- 
times alterations  in  almost  every  line  of  a  poem  may 
be  studied;  sometimes  there  is  a  whole  series  of  at- 
tempts at  a  line;  and  if  we  had  more  of  Herrick's 
original  MSS.  available,  we  should  no  doubt  find 
every  poem  a  mass  of  trial  trips  and  deletions.  He 
blotted,  filed,  and  pumice-stoned  as  much  as  any 
English  poet,  and  he  had  the  most  delicate  and  delib- 
erate sense  of  all  the  complex  mechanism  of  verse. 
This  rubicund  Royalist  rector  was  above  all  else  a 
craftsman  and  a  connoisseur. 

What  distinguishes  his  best  —  they  are  so  well 
known  that  I  need  not  quote  them  —  poems  from 
his  second  best  is  usually  that  the  former  have  some 
especially  taking  touch  of  tenderness.  It  is  never 
very  deep;  even  in  an  epitaph  he  is  more  concerned 
with  turning  it  well  than  with  the,  often  apocryphal, 
death  of  the  person  commemorated.  His  adora- 
tions and  griefs  are  as  light  as  rose-leaves,  but  they 
are  genuine  in  their  way,  and  it  is  rather  a  slight 
difference  in  the  quality  of  his  emotion  than  a  rela- 

122 


Herrick 

tlve  superiority  of  craftsmanship  that  distinguishes 
his  most  perfect  lyrics.  His  strongest  characteristic, 
one  that  runs  through  the  whole  body  of  his  verse, 
was  his  intense  sensual  appreciation  of  the  material 
world.  He  was  a  connoisseur  in  life  as  in  art.  His 
admired  record  of  the  "  liquefaction "  of  Julia's 
silks  is  characteristic  of  him.  "  O  how  that  glitter- 
ing taketh  me !  "  he  might  have  said  of  a  thousand 
other  things.  He  looked  at  colours  and  felt  sur- 
faces like  a  connoisseur;  he  tasted  substances  like  an 
epicure  tasting  wines.  He  crushes  all  the  distinctive 
hues  and  flavours  out  of  flowers  and  spices,  roses  and 
primroses  and  violets,  tulips,  lilies,  marigolds, 
cherryblossoms,  virgins'  skins,  jet,  ivory,  amber,  and 
gums.  There  is  nothing  romantic  about  him,  and 
nothing  dim;  all  things  are  equally  vivid  and  clear, 
no  thing  is  mysteriously  vaster  than  other  things. 
The  moon  and  cream  are  both  white  —  he  will  com- 
pare his  lady's  cheek  to  either  indifferently  or  to  both 
in  a  sentence;  he  relishes  the  loveliness  of  each  and 
he  drinks  each,  with  exquisite  pleasure,  out  of  the 
same  sized  liqueur  glass.  Few  other  writers  give 
one  so  keen  a  contact  with  the  beauties  of  the  physi- 
cal world.  But  it  is  usually  their  sensuous  appeal 
that  is  registered,  sometimes  their  sentimental  ap- 
peal, but  never  their  mystic  appeal.  Herrick  was  a 
thoroughgoing  pagan. 

His  capacity  for  conveying  vivid  impressions  of 
the  physical  was  not  invariably  employed  upon  such 

123 


Books  in  General 

agreeable  objects  as  daffodils  and  maidens.  His 
sheer  virtuosity  made  him  compose  those  offensive 
epigrams  which  some  bashful  editors  exclude  from 
their  collections.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  he 
really  wished  to  vent  his  spleen  against  Lungs,  Gryll, 
Clasco,  Scobble,  Bunce,  and  his  other,  presumably 
pseudonymous,  butts;  though  if  his  efforts  in  this 
direction  got  about  in  his  Devonshire  village  and 
people  took  them  to  apply  to  themselves  it  is  no 
wonder  that  the  natives  behaved  towards  him,  as  he 
complained,  like  surly  savages.  "  Upon  Batt "  is 
one  of  the  mildest  of  them: 

Batt  he  gets  children,  not  for  love  to  re  are  'em, 
But  out  of  hope  his  wife  might  die  to  beare  'em. 

A  more  characteristic,  but  still  a  mild  one,  is 
"  Upon  Lungs  " : 

Lungs  (as  some  say)  ne'er  sits  him  down  to  eate 
But  that  his  breath  do's  Fly-blow  all  the  meate. 

He  tells  —  I  refrain  from  the  grossest  ones  —  of 
another  gentleman  whose  eyes  were  so  sticky  in 
the  morning  that  his  wife  had  to  lick  them  open; 
of  another  whose  raw  eyes  would  supply  an  angler 
with  a  day's  bait;  and  of  another  (very  parsimon- 
ious) who  preserved  his  nails,  warts,  and  corns  in 
boxes  to  make  jelly  for  his  broth.  It  is  not  aston- 
ishing that  when  the  "  sprightly  Spartanesse  "  ap- 
peared to  him  in  dream  she  remarked: 
124 


Herrick 

Hence,  Remove, 
Herrick  thou  art  too  coorse  for  love. 

But  as  one  goes  on  through  these  things  one  is  too 
amused  to  be  disgusted;  one  wonders  what  on  earth 
the  man  is  going  to  think  of  next.  And  that  was  the 
idea.  He  had  compressed  all  the  fragrance  of  the 
spring  into  short  lyrics  —  how  much  concentrated 
beastliness  could  he  get  into  a  couplet?  He  had 
rivalled  Horace  and  Anacreon  in  one  line;  could  he 
rival  Martial  in  another?  You  may  picture  him 
making  these  things  • —  sitting  at  a  table  in  the  sun 
outside  the  rectory,  quaffing,  as  was  his  wont,  a  social 
tankard  with  his  favourite  pig,  and  working  and 
working  at  these  singular  concoctions  until  there 
came  the  thrill  of  the  artist  who  knows  he  has  pro- 
duced a  perfect  cameo. 

His  outlook  and  methods  being  such,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  when  he  gave  up  his  "  unbaptized 
Rhimes  "  and  took  to  "  Noble  Numbers  "  he  was 
comparatively  unsuccessful.  Quaintness  and  neat- 
ness do  not  go  far  in  religious  verse,  and  the  con- 
genital materialism  of  Herrick's  imagery  sometimes 
produced  the  most  grotesque  effects. 

God  is  all  forepart,  for  we  never  see 
Any  part  backward  in  the  Deitie. 

An  epigram  which  might  have  had  some  point  if 

I2C 


Books  in  General 

applied  to  a  man  is  merely  vapid  when  applied  to 
the  Deity.     And  the  vapid  becomes  comic  in 

/  crawle,  I  creep;  my  Christ  I  come 
To  thee,  for  curing  Balsamum, 

and 

Lord,  I  confesse,  that  thou  alone  are  able 
To  purifie  this  my  Augean  stable; 
Be  the  Seas  water,  and  the  Land  all  Sope, 
Yet  if  thy  Bloud  not  wash  me,  there's  no  hope. 

Herrick  was  not  an  exalted  religious  poet.  But 
it  doesn't  much  matter  what  he  was  not;  what  he  was 
is  one  of  the  greatest  small  masters  in  the  history 
of  verse. 


126 


The  Muse  in  Liquor 

IN  former  times  men  wrote  about  drinking  with- 
out the  slightest  self-consciousness.  Our  fore- 
fathers, from  Teos  to  Chertsey,  from  Green- 
land's icy  mountains  to  India's  coral  strand,  sang  the 
praises  of  what  nobody  in  those  days  dreamt  of  call- 
ing alcohol,  as  they  sang  the  praises  of  the  other 
amenities  of  life.  To  Homer  "  bright  wine  "  was 
as  indispensable  a  commodity  as  bread:  no  home 
could  be  complete  without  it.  If  Anacreon  and 
Horace  were  rather  more  sophisticated  about  it  and 
tasted  their  liquor  with  a  deliberate  and  spun-out  sen- 
suality, they  still  had  no  idea  that  there  was  any- 
thing morally  questionable  about  drink.  So  on- 
wards to  mediseval  times.  When  the  Anglo-Saxon 
leech  laid  it  down  that  if  a  man  has  fainted  from 
hunger  one  should 

"  pull  his  locks  from  him,  and  wring  his  ears,  and 
twitch  his  whiskers;  when  he  is  better  give  him  some 
bread  broken  in  wine," 

there  was  no  rival  school  of  leeches  to  jump  up  and 
protest  that  to  inject  alcoholic  poisons  into  a  debili- 
tated frame  was  about  the  worst  thing  you  could  do. 
Drinking  in  the  Middle  Ages  was  unchallengeably 

127 


Books  in  General 

respectable.  "  The  introduction  of  wine  and  viticul- 
ture," says  Mr.  A.  L.  Simon  in  his  history  of  the 
Wine  Trade  in  England, 

"  is  coeval  with  the  introduction  of  the  Christian 
religion.  As  the  numbers  of  clergy  increased, 
greater  supplies  of  wine  were  required,  so  vines  were 
planted  at  home,  and  a  considerable  foreign  wine 
trade  came  into  being." 

The  drinking-songs  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  largely 
composed  by  theological  students,  and  it  was  (at 
least  I  am  of  that  party  which  maintains  that  it  was) 
an  archdeacon  of  the  English  Church  who  wrote  one 
of  the  two  best  lyrics  of  the  kind  that  this  island  has 
produced  —  that  perfect  song  in  which  he  expresses 
the  hope  that  he  shall  meet  his  latter  end  in  a  hos- 
telry and  that  some  one  should  hold  a  pottle-pot 
before  his  dying  eyes : 

Ut  dicant  cum  venerint  angelorum  chori 
"  Deus  sit  propitius  huic  potatori." 

Our  other  great  song  has  also  been  attributed  to 
an  ecclesiastic,  Bishop  Still. 

But  if  a  modern  bishop  wrote  a  song  about  hot 
whisky,  he  would  get  into  hot  water.  Times  have 
changed.  When  a  modern  English  king  wants  to 
do  the  popular  thing,  he  takes  the  pledge;  when 
ia8 


The  Muse  in  Liquor 

Henry  III  wanted  to,  he  gave  his  old  wine  to  the 
poor  —  the  gift  was  not  so  noble  as  it  sounds,  for 
in  his  day  old  wine  was  bad,  owing  to  the  lack  of 
glass  bottles  and  well-made  casks.  Bishop  Still, 
when  he  wrote  (if  he  wrote)  about  the  ale-swallow- 
ing capacity  of  himself  and  Tib,  his  wife,  was  on 
the  safe  side,  for  his  sovereign  lady,  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, was  addicted  herself.  Her  Ministers  had  a 
job  keeping  her  supplied  with  beer.  When  she  was 
on  one  of  her  royal  progresses,  the  Earl  of  Leicester 
wrote  to  Lord  Burleigh: 

"  There  is  not  one  drop  of  good  drink  for  her. 
We  were  fain  to  send  to  London  and  Kenilworth 
and  divers  other  places  where  ale  was;  her  own 
here  was  so  strong  as  there  was  no  man  able  to 
drink  it." 

But  since  that  time  a  question  of  principle  has  arisen, 
and  the  changed  attitude  of  society  towards  drink 
has  been  accompanied  by  a  corresponding  change  in 
the  tone  of  those  who  write  in  praise  of  drink. 
They  used  to  be  natural  and  expository;  they  are 
now  self-conscious  and  on  the  defensive. 

I  note  the  transition  in  a  volume  (1862)  called 
How  to  Mix  Drinks,  or  The  Bon-Vivant's  Com- 
panion, by  Jerry  Thomas,  formerly  principal  bar- 
tender at  the  Metropolitan  Hotel,  New  York,  and 
the  Planter's  House,  St.  Louis.     It  is  an  ingenious 

129 


Books  in  General 

book  and  a  suitable  companion  to  its  shelf-neighbour, 
The  Maltworm's  Vade-mecum,  a  guide  to  the  public- 
houses  of  early  Georgian  London.  But  if  Mr. 
Thomas  had  been  a  contemporary  of  his  brother 
connoisseur,  it  would  never  have  occurred  to  him  to 
write  a  preface  apologizing  for  the  mere  compilation 
of  such  a  book: 

"  Whether  it  is  judicious  that  mankind  should  con- 
tinue to  indulge  in  such  things,  or  whether  it  would 
be  wiser  to  abstain  from  all  enjoyments  of  that  char- 
acter, it  is  not  our  province  to  decide.  We  leave 
that  question  to  the  moral  philosopher.  We  simply 
contend  that  a  relish  for  *  social  drinks  '  is  universal ; 
that  those  drinks  exist  in  greater  variety  in  the 
United  States  than  in  any  other  country  in  the  world, 
and  that  he,  therefore,  who  proposes  to  impart  to 
those  drinks  not  only  the  most  palatable  but  the  most 
wholesome  characteristics  of  which  they  may  be 
made  susceptible,  is  a  genuine  public  benefactor." 

You  see  the  uneasiness  coming  in;  the  devotee  is 
conscious  of  a  disapproving  eye.  And  what  was 
perceptible  in  1862  is  much  more  marked  to-day, 
when  a  considerable  percentage  of  the  population 
looks  askance  at  a  man  who  has  been  seen  coming 
out  of  a  bar,  and  when  most  of  our  priests  and  half 
our  politicians  denounce  fermented  drinks  as  an  in- 
vention of  the  Devil.  The  results  of  this  are  seen 
in  the  twentieth-century  Bacchanal's  writings.  He  is 
130 


The  Muse  in  Liquor 

on  the  defensive.  He  cannot  write  a  mere  song  in 
praise  of  drink:  his  Muse  is  largely,  even  mainly, 
concerned  with  dispraise  of  the  opponents  of  drink. 
Mr.  Belloc  and  Mr.  Chesterton,  belauding  drinks  as 
against  beverages,  strike  an  attitude  which  Anacreon 
simply  would  not  have  understood.  They  cannot  lie 
and  lap  their  liquor  in  dreamy  content.  Whenever 
they  take  up  a  pot  of  beer  they  have  to  march  out 
and  drink  it  defiantly  in  the  middle  of  the  Strand. 
It  is  almost  as  if  they  knew  they  were  the  champions 
of  a  lost,  though  noble,  cause;  and  felt  that  at  any 
moment  they  might  be  called  upon  to  Die  in  the  Last 
Tankard. 

This  tendency  is  strongly  marked  in  Mr.  Chester- 
ton's volume  Wine,  Water,  and  Song.  Mr.  Ches- 
terton spends  half  his  time  in  abusing  abstemious 
American  and  English  millionaires,  tea,  cocoa,  min- 
eral waters,  and  grocers  —  who,  lacking  the  genial 
proclivities  of  publicans,  have  never  been  known 

To  crack  a  bottle  of  fish  sauce 
Or  stand  a  man  a  cheese. 

But  the  novelty  of  tone  makes  the  songs  all  the 
better:  for  the  old  material  of  drinking-songs  was 
getting  threadbare.  To  my  thinking,  these  songs 
—  most  of  them  appeared  in  The  Flying  Inn,  and 
it  was  a  pity  that  they  were  omitted  from  the  vol- 
ume   of    collected    Poems    recently    issued  —  are 

131 


Books  in  General 

amongst  the  finest  bibulous  songs  ever  written, 
and  some  of  Mr.  Chesterton's  very  best  work.  You 
can  read  them  aloud  to  other  people  and  very  seldom 
come  across  a  stilted  or  obscure  phrase  which  makes 
you  feel  sheepish  to  say  it.  But,  more  than  that, 
JVine  and  Water,  The  Good  Rich  Man,  The  Song 
against  Songs,  and  the  two  poems  on  the  English 
Road  are  the  sort  of  infectiously  musical  things  that 
one  learns  by  heart  without  knowing  one  has  done  it. 

Old  Noah  he  had  an  ostrich  farm  and  fowls  on  the 

largest  scale. 
He  ate  his  eggs  with  a  ladle  in  an  egg-cup  big  as  a 

pail. 
And  the  soup  he  took  was  Elephant  Soup,  and  the 

fish  he  took  was  whale, 
But  they  all  were  small  to  the  cellar  he  took  when  he 

set  out  to  sail. 
And  Noah  he  often  said  to  his  wife  when  he  sat 

down  to  dine, 
"  I  don't  care  where  the  water  goes  if  it  doesn't  get 

into  the  wine." 

Lives  there  a  man  with  soul  so  dead  that  when  he 
comes  across  this  or  The  Road  to  Roundabout 
(which  is  about  the  best  of  the  lot)  he  does  not 
automatically  improvise  a  tune  to  it  and  start,  ac- 
cording to  his  ability,  singing  it? 


132 


£S  Misspent 


ANY  one  who  Is  interested  in  what  nobody 
has  yet  asked  us  to  call  the  British  language 
must  have  felt  apprehensive  if  he  read  the 
correspondence  recently  printed  in  the  Times  on  the 
subject  of  a  synonym  for  the  word  "  Colonial,"  It 
appears  that  this  word  is  "  strongly  objected  to  "  in 
the  —  er  —  Dominions,  and  especially  in  Canada. 
The  Central  Committee  of  the  Overseas  Club  there- 
fore started  a  Missing  Word  Competition.  It  of- 
fered a  prize  of  £5  for  the  best  synonym  and  "  mem- 
bers have  been  most  prolific  in  their  ideas."  The 
examples  given  of  their  fecundity  are,  however,  so 
malformed  as  to  lead  to  the  hope  that  in  future  they 
will  practise  an  intellectual  Malthusianism.  The 
Chairman  of  the  Club  says  that  amongst  the  terms 
suggested  are  Britainer,  Britonial,  Imperialist,  Do- 
minion, Britannian,  Britoner,  Greater  Briton,  Ang- 
lian Pan-Briton,  and  such  repulsive  composts  as  Em- 
pirean,  Transmarine  (why  not  Ultramarine?), 
Away-Born,  Out-Briton,  Co-Briton,  Albionian,  Mac- 
Briton,  and  Britson.  What  those  which  he  does 
not  publish  were  like  one  can  only  surmise;  but  no 
doubt  Ap-Briton,  O'Briton,  Britidian,  Britklnson, 
Dominisher,  Fraternanglian,  Nonsunsetton,  and 
Heptathalassian  were  among  them.  And  so,  pos- 
sibly, was  Oversear. 

133 


Books  in  General 

It  needs  must  be  that  new  words  should  come; 
and  one  should  not  cry  woe  against  those  through 
whom  they  come.  We  are  constantly  inventing  or 
importing  words  to  convey  ideas  or  shades  of  feeling 
for  which  we  previously  had  no  exact  means  of  ex- 
pression. We  also  necessarily  acquire  new  words 
for  new  objects,  such  as  chemicals  and  machines. 
When  men  made  the  telephone  they  had  to  call  it 
something;  and  the  same  thing  applied  to  the  omni- 
bus. We  can  frequently  trace  new  words  to  their 
inventors.  But  we  may  safely  say  that  successful 
new  words  are  seldom  "  made  up  "  cold-bloodedly 
merely  for  the  sake  of  the  thing.  An  author  hits 
upon  a  word  half-accidentally,  developing  it  usually 
from  some  word  already  familiar;  or  a  philosopher 
or  scientist  constructs  one  out  of  fragments  of  Greek, 
or  Latin,  or  Greek  and  Latin  mixed,  because  he  has 
a  new  object  to  describe.  The  process  is  going  on 
continually.  The  rivals  "  airman  "  and  "  aviator  " 
(somebody  once  asked  if  you  could  call  a  miner  a 
"  talpiator  ")  are  at  present*  fighting  it  out  in  the 
Press  anH  on  men's  tongues;  and  if  some  central 
authority  is  in  the  future  established  over  the  heads 
of  the  sovereign  Powers,  it  is  likely  that  the  word 
"  supernational,"  now  being  bruited  about,  may 
come  into  use  to  describe  it.  We  may  get  in  time, 
too,  an  inclusive  word  which  will  imply  "  citizen  of 
the  British  Empire,"  covering  both  Britons  (or,  if 
you  prefer  it,  Britirish)  and  Colonials.     But  I  doubt 

*  Airman  happily  seems    (July  1918)    to  have  won. —  S.  E. 


£5  Misspent 

whether  such  a  word  will  result  from  a  public  com- 
petition. 

When  it  comes  it  will  come  because  some  one 
person  starts  using  it  and  others  take  to  it.  And 
when  it  is  a  case  of  inventing  a  synonym,  a  new 
word  as  a  substitute  for  an  old  one  in  general  use, 
I  think  it  most  unlikely  that  a  group  of  persons  such 
as  the  Overseas  Club  could  persuade  the  race  to 
abandon  a  universally  used  word  like  "  Colonial  " 
for  some  £5  prize  word  merely  because  hypersensi- 
tive people  think  that  the  word  used  to  have  a  faintly 
derogatory  flavour.  "  Colonial  "  is  very  strongly 
entrenched.  One  can  just  understand  how  the 
Americans  have  come  to  use  the  abominable  word 
"  Britisher  "  instead  of  the  ancient  "  Briton  " ;  for 
it  falls  more  trippingly  off  the  tongue.  But  "  Co- 
lonial "  is  a  most  liquid,  easy,  and  euphonious  word. 
If  it  is  ever  superseded,  it  will  be  so  because  some 
other  word  comes  in  with  the  larger  connotation 
to  which  I  have  referred,  a  word  which  is  bound  to 
come  into  being  when  we  cease  to  think  of  the  Empire 
as  composed  of  the  United  Kingdom  on  the  one  hand 
and  the  Colonies  on  the  other,  but  think  of  it  as  a 
federation  of  equal  and  distinct  units. 

It  is  a  pity  that  people  take  so  seriously  the  fact 
that  when  the  words  "  Colonies  "  and  "  Colonial  " 
were  lirst  used  by  us  they  had  certain  associations. 
For  it  is  evident  that  to  the  vast  majority  of  our 

135 


Books  in  General 

countrymen  they  are  entirely  divested  of  them. 
Whatever  one's  habits,  one  automatically  thinks 
when  the  word  "  Colonial "  is  mentioned,  not  of  a 
humble  emigrant  who  wants  shepherding,  but  of  a 
person  who  is  the  very  quintessence  of  independence. 
Any  one  who  has  even  the  most  superficial  acquaint- 
ance with  the  language  knows  that  words  can  lose 
their  old  associations  utterly.  If,  for  example,  I 
were  arrested  and  charged  for  alleging,  in  a  public 
speech,  one  of  our  Royal  Princes  to  be  "  a  silly 
knave,"  I  should  not  find  the  magistrate  very  sympa- 
thetic if  I  said  I  was  using  the  words  in  a  Shake- 
spearean (which  in  this  case  would  be  equivalent  to 
a  Pickwickian)  sense,  and  that  I  merely  meant  to 
call  him  "  a  simple  boy."  Similarly,  where  an  ob- 
ject changes  its  form  its  name  changes  its  connota- 
tion. If  one  could  talk  of  a  bottle  to  a  mediaeval 
ancestor,  he  would  think  of  something  made  of 
leather;  to-day  a  bottle  is  essentially  something  made 
of  glass.  If  we  always  wanted  a  new  term  directly 
a  new  association  was  created,  there  would  be  no  end 
to  the  process;  we  should  have  to  have  a  Ministry 
of  Constructive  Philology  always  at  work.  After 
all,  Charleston  was  named  after  an  English  king 
when  the  North  American  plantations  were  very 
subordinate  indeed;  and  Melbourne  after  a  member 
of  the  British  House  of  Lords,  an  institution  of 
which  few  modern  Australians  approve.  So,  on  the 
whole,  saving  the  Overseas  Club's  reverence,  we  may 
as  well,  for  the  time  being,  stick  to  "  Colonial." 
136 


Shakespeare's  Women  and 
Mr.  George  Moore 

HANDLING  the  Porcupine  of  Avon  Is  al- 
ways ticklish  work.  When  Mr.  George 
Moore,  after  containing  himself  for  years, 
at  last  wrote  to  explain  that  It  was  he,  and  not  Mr. 
Shaw  or  Mr.  Franz  Helnrlchs,  who  discovered  the 
fact  that  Shakespeare's  female  characters  were  weak 
because  they  were  written  for  boy-actors,  it  was  only 
natural  that  another  correspondent  should  show  that 
Mr.  Moore  had  been  forestalled  by  an  eighteenth- 
century  Frenchman.  Mr.  Moore's  remark  about 
the  boy-actors  was,  however,  merely  a  passing  ob- 
servation In  a  lecture  In  French  (published  in  the 
Revue  Bleue  In  19 lo)  which  is  an  important  docu- 
ment in  the  movement  against  what  Mr.  Shaw  calls 
Bardolatry. 

"  He  is  inconceivably  wise ;  the  others  conceiv- 
ably." Thus  Emerson;  and  a  few  generations  of 
such  sweeping  remarks  were  bound  to  be  followed 
by  a  reaction.  For  a  hundred  years  we  have  swal- 
lowed Shakespeare  steadily  and  swallowed  him 
whole ;  a  man  has  even  written  a  book  on  The  Mes- 
siahship  of  Shakespeare.     And  of  all  his  powers, 

137 


Books  in  General 

that  of  creating  an  infinite  variety  of  female  char- 
acter has  been  perhaps  more  enthusiastically  praised 
than  any  other.  The  professors  have  given  us 
treatises  on  Shakespeare's  Feminine  Types;  and  the 
less  erudite  public  has  been  deluged  with  Posies 
from  Shakespeare's  Garden  of  Girls.  "  O  Nature! 
O  Shakespeare !  which  of  ye  drew  from  the  other?  " 
That  is  typical.  Dr.  Lewes,  one  of  the  ablest  Ger- 
man writers  on  the  subject,  kneels  and  adores,  and 
asks  women  to  do  the  same.  "  This  piece,"  he  says 
of  Henry  Fill, 

"  this  piece  and  its  female  characters  should  indeed 
inspire  women  with  profound  gratitude  towards  a 
poet  who  represents  a  queen  and  a  heroine  who  is 
above  all  things  an  excellent  woman,  displaying  in 
the  midst  of  frightful  trials  all  the  best  womanly 
qualities,  thus  proving  that  a  noble,  pure  feminine 
heart  is  the  home  of  the  noblest  virtue,  the  highest 
truth  and  purity.  Seldom  has  more  flattering  hom- 
age been  paid  to  the  sex  than  by  Shakespeare  in  his 
presentation  of  Catherine  of  Aragon." 

And  hear  Mrs.  Jamieson,  author  of  the  best-known 
English  book  on  these  women.  Dare  any  one  apply 
the  epithet  "  clever  "  to  Portia,  "  this  heavenly  com- 
pound of  talent,  feeling,  wisdom,  beauty,  and  gentle- 
ness "  ?  As  for  Lady  Macbeth,  with  her  "  Gothic 
grandeur,  rich  chiaroscuro,  and  deep-toned  colours," 
even  she  is  not  to  be  insulted  by  comparison  with 
138 


Shakespeare^s  Women  and  Mr.  G.  Moore 

other  villainesses.  Sophocles'  Clytemnestra  had 
been  mentioned,  but 

"  would  any  one  compare  this  shameless  adulteress, 
cruel  murderess  and  unnatural  mother  with  Lady 
Macbeth?  Lady  Macbeth  herself  would  certainly 
shrink  from  the  approximation." 

One  has  sometimes  felt  that  her  ladyship  was  prob- 
ably president  of  the  local  branches  of  the  G.F.S.  and 
the  Soldiers'  and  Sailors'  Families  Association. 

There  was  nothing  of  this  sort  about  Mr.  George 
Moore's  lecture.  It  opened  with  a  strong  protest 
against  the  "  vast  clamour  "  of  Shakespeare's  wor- 
shippers: 

"  One  might  take  them  for  a  gathering  of  negro 
Methodists  in  a  chapel,  each  one  straining  his  lungs 
to  out-bellow  his  neighbour,  in  order  to  attract  the 
Almighty's  attention.  Is  it  that  the  critics  think 
that  Shakespeare  is  listening  to  them?  At  any  rate, 
the  madness  increases  daily,  and,  if  the  cult  of 
Jahveh  should  happen  to  decay  in  England,  I  should 
not  be  surprised  were  they  to  promote  Shakespeare 
to  the  vacant  throne  in  the  heavens." 

After  this  engaging  beginning  he  went  on  to  the 
general  contention  that  neither  Shakespeare  nor  any 
of  his  contemporaries  drew  or  painted  a  real  woman. 
The  Renaissance  was  interested  in  women  only  as 

139 


Books  in  General 

queens  or  odalisques,  and  Shakespeare  at  most  made 
a  few  delicious  silhouettes  of  women.  His  men 
were  another  matter.  *'  Hamlet  is  the  secret 
thought  of  all  men  " ;  and,  though  it  hurts  Mr. 
Moore  to  agree  with  Tolstoi,  he  reaffirmed  Tolstoi's 
statement  that  "  Falstaff  is  the  most  universal  and 
original  thing  in  Shakespeare."  "  Hamlet  is  the 
hieroglyphic  and  symbol  of  the  intellect;  Falstaff  is 
the  symbol  and  arabesque  of  the  flesh."  But 
Shakespeare,  like  Balzac,  was  chiefly  concerned  with 
"  the  eternal  masculine." 

But  suppose  it  be  admitted  that  Shakespeare  has 
no  female  Hamlet  and  no  female  Falstaff;  is  it  not 
arguable  that  then  the  case  for  the  superiority  of 
Shakespeare's  males  over  his  females  is  very  much 
less  strong?  It  would  be  absurd  to  attempt  to  dog- 
matize on  the  subject;  but  personally  I  doubt 
whether  any  one  who  cannot  get  inside  the  minds  of 
most  (though  many  would  exempt  Heine's  "  ancient 
Parisienne  "  Cleopatra,  and  one  or  two  more)  of 
Shakespeare's  women  will  get  inside  the  minds  of 
most  of  his  men  either.  When  Professor  Dowden 
said  that  he  had  "  edited  a  whole  play  for  love  of 
Imogen"  the  remark  (if  he  heard  it)  may  have 
sounded  strange  to  Mr.  Moore;  but  would  he  un- 
derstand, either,  any  one  editing  a  whole  play  for 
love  of  Antonio,  Bassanio,  Benedict,  the  Duke  of 
Twelfth  Night,  King  Lear,  Othello,  Mark  Antony, 
or  Henry  V?  It  is  possible  to  hold  the  view  that 
140 


Shakespeare's  Women  and  Mr.  G.  Moore 

Shakespeare  "  put  himself  "  into  a  few  characters 
and  observed  the  others  "  from  the  outside,"  mak- 
ing them  most  interesting  when  they  are  most  mark- 
edly what  are  called  "  character  parts."  Person- 
ally, though  I  should  certainly  know  Hamlet  or 
Falstaff  if  I  met  them  in  swallowtails,  I  don't  think 
there  are  many  other  of  Shakespeare's  characters 
whom  I  should  recognize  if  I  encountered  them 
clothed  in  other  than  their  traditional  garments. 
But  I  do  not  think  it  is  easy  to  sustain  the  argument 
that,  as  a  whole,  his  women  are  less  carefully  and 
sympathetically  drawn  than  his  men  —  Lady  Mac- 
beth than  Macbeth,  Juliet  than  Romeo,  Cleopatra 
than  Anthony,  Beatrice  than  Benedict,  Rosalind  than 
Orlando  —  or,  still  more,  that  he  was  not  interested 
in  women  and  regarded  them  in  a  casual  lazy  way 
as  decorations.  Shakespeare's  politics  were  Heaven 
knows  what;  and  he  may  not  necessarily  have  drawn 
Portia  as  an  argument  for  the  admission  of  women 
to  the  Inns  of  Court.  But  one  would  have  imagined 
that  if  ever  there  were  a  writer  who  treated  women 
and  men  on  a  footing  of  complete  equality,  and  even 
perhaps  elevated  women's  moral  superiority  to  an 
indefensible  pitch,  it  was  he.  If  his  female  char- 
acters are  not  living  human  beings  it  Is  certainly  not 
because  he  despised  them.  He  gave  them  plenty 
of  virtue,  wit,  courage,  and  will,  and  an  ample  share 
of  the  stage;  it  Is,  with  all  due  respect  to  Mr.  Moore, 
grotesque  to  suggest  that  he  thought  of  them  merely 
as  properties. 

141 


Books  in  General 

The  recent  correspondence  sent  me  back  to  Mr. 
Moore's  paper,  and  I  read  it  with  admiration  for 
the  fruits  of  what  he  called  a  month's  rather  ex- 
hausting liaison  with  the  French  language.  But 
something  about  it  —  perhaps  it  was  the  catalogue 
of  heroines,  each  with  an  appropriate  criticism  — 
seemed  familiar.  I  have  tracked  it;  here  also  Mr. 
Moore  has  been  anticipated.  It  was  the  late  Max 
O'Rell  —  it  is  almost  like  being  anticipated  by 
Charley's  Aunt  —  who  remarked  that 

"  The  heroines  of  Shakespeare  are  for  the  most 
part  slaves  or  fools.  Juliet  is  a  spoilt  child,  Des- 
demona  a  sort  of  submissive  odalisque,  Beatrice  a 
chatterbox,  and  Ophelia  a  goose." 

It  is  very  difficult  indeed  to  say  anything  new  about 
Shakespeare. 


142 


Moving  a  Library 


I  DO  not  remember  that  any  of  our  meditative 
essayists  has  written  on  the  subject  of  Moving 
One's  Books.  If  such  an  essay  exists  I  should 
be  glad  to  go  to  it  for  sympathy  and  consolation. 
For  I  have  just  moved  from  one  room  to  another,  in 
which  I  devoutly  hope  that  I  shall  end  my  days, 
though  (as  Mr.  Asquith  would  put  it  in  his  rounded 
way)  "  at  a  later,  rather  than  at  an  earlier,  date." 
Night  after  night  I  have  spent  carting  down  two 
flights  of  stairs  more  books  than  I  ever  thought  I 
possessed.  Journey  after  journey,  as  monotonously 
regular  as  the  progresses  of  a  train  round  the  Inner 
Circle :  upstairs  empty-handed,  and  downstairs  creep- 
ing with  a  decrepit  crouch,  a  tall,  crazy,  dangerously 
bulging  column  of  books  wedged  between  my  two 
hands  and  the  indomitable  point  of  my  chin.  The 
job  simply  has  to  be  done;  once  it  is  started  there  is 
no  escape  from  it;  but  at  times  during  the  process 
one  hates  books  as  the  slaves  who  built  the  Pyramids 
must  have  hated  public  monuments.  A  strong  and 
bitter  book-sickness  floods  one's  soul.  How  igno- 
minious to  be  strapped  to  this  ponderous  mass  of 
paper,  print,  and  dead  men's  sentiments !  Would 
it  not  be  better,  finer,  braver,  to  leave  the  rubbish 
where  it  lies  and  walk  out  into  the  world  a  free,  un- 
trammelled,     illiterate      Superman?     Civilization! 

143 


Books  in  General 

Pah!  But  that  mood  is,  I  am  happy  to  say,  with 
me  ephemeral.  It  is  generated  by  the  necessity  for 
tedious  physical  exertion  and  dies  with  the  need. 
Nevertheless  the  actual  transport  is  about  the  brief- 
est and  least  harassing  of  the  operations  called  for. 
Dusting  (or  "  buffeting  the  books,"  as  Dr.  Johnson 
called  it)  is  a  matter  of  choice.  One  can  easily  say 
to  oneself,  "  These  books  were  banged  six  months 
ago  "  (knowing  full  well  that  it  was  really  twelve 
months  ago),  and  thus  decide  to  postpone  the  cere- 
mony until  everything  else  has  been  settled.  But  the 
complications  of  getting  one's  library  straight  are 
still  appalling. 

Of  course,  if  your  shelves  are  moved  bodily  it  is 
all  right.  You  can  take  the  books  out,  lay  them 
on  the  floor  in  due  order,  and  restore  them  to  their 
old  places.  But  otherwise,  if  you  have  any  sense 
of  congruity  and  proportion,  you  are  in  for  a  bad 
time.  My  own  case  could  not  be  worse  than  it  is. 
The  room  from  which  I  have  been  expelled  was  low 
and  square;  the  room  into  which  I  have  been  driven 
is  high  and  L-shaped.  None  of  my  old  wall-shelves 
will  fit  my  new  walls;  and  I  have  had  to  erect  new 
ones,  more  numerous  than  the  old  and  totally  differ- 
ent in  shape  and  arrangement.  It  is  quite  impos- 
sible to  preserve  the  old  plan;  but  the  devisal  of 
another  one  brings  sweat  to  the  brow.  If  one  hap- 
pened to  be  a  person  who  never  desired  to  refer 
to  his  books  the  obvious  thing  to  do  would  be  to 
144 


Moving  a  Library 

put  the  large  books  into  the  large  shelves  and  the 
small  ones  into  the  small  shelves  and  then  go  and 
smoke  a  self-satisfied  pipe  against  the  nearest  post. 
But  to  a  man  who  prefers  to  know  where  every  book 
is,  and  who  possesses,  moreover,  a  sense  of  System 
and  wishes  everything  to  be  in  surroundings  proper 
to  its  own  qualities,  this  is  not  possible.  Even  an 
unsystematic  man  must  choose  to  add  a  classifica- 
tion by  subject  to  the  compulsory  classification  by 
size ;  and,  in  my  case,  there  is  an  added  difficulty  pro- 
duced by  a  strong  hankering  for  some  sort  of  chron- 
ological order.  There  is  nothing  like  that  for 
easy  reference.  If  you  know  that  Beowulf  will  be  at 
the  left-hand  end  of  the  shelf  that  he  fits  and  Julia 
Ward,  the  Sweet  Singer  of  Michigan,  at  the  right- 
hand  end,  you  save  yourself  a  good  deal  of  time. 
But  when  your  new  compartments  do  not  fit  your 
old  sections,  when  the  large  books  of  Stodge  are 
so  numerous  as  to  insist  upon  intruding  into  the 
shelves  reserved  for  large  books  of  Pure  Literature, 
and  the  duodecimos  of  Foreign  Verse  surge  in  a 
tidal  wave  over  the  preserves  of  the  small  books  on 
Free  Trade,  Ethics,  and  Palaeontology,  one  is  re- 
duced to  the  verge  of  despair.  That  is  where  I 
am  at  this  moment;  sitting  in  the  midst  of  a  large 
floor  covered  with  sawdust,  white  distemper,  nails, 
tobacco-ash,  burnt  matches,  and  the  Greatest  Works 
of  the  World's  Greatest  Masters.  Fortunately,  in 
Ruskin's  words,  "  I  don't  suppose  I  shall  do  it  again 
for  months  and  months  and  months." 

145 


Table-Talk  and  Jest  Books 

SAMUEL  BUTLER'S  Note-Books  have  now 
gone  into  another  (popular)  edition,  issued 
by  Mr.  Fifield.  I  don't  know  how  large  these 
editions  are :  if,  as  I  fear,  they  run  to  less  than  fifty 
thousand  copies  apiece,  Samuel  Butler  has  not  yet 
got  his  due.  There  is  no  other  volume  in  the  whole 
of  his  collected  works  to  equal  this  selection  from  his 
note-books:  you  have  here  the  quintessence  of  his 
wisdom,  his  taste,  and  his  superb  impudence.  The 
book  really  belongs  to  the  "  table-talk  "  or  "  ana  " 
class  of  books.  Butler,  that  is  to  say,  recorded  his 
own  table-talk.  His  principle  was,  he  said,  that  if 
you  wanted  to  record  a  thought  you  had  to  shoot  it 
on  the  wing.  If,  therefore,  he  thought  of  or  said 
anything  especially  illuminating  or  amusing,  or  heard 
any  one  else  say  anything  of  the  sort,  down  it  went. 
And  it  always  went  down  as  colloquially  and  freshly 
as  if  a  Boswell  had  been  present  recording  conversa- 
tion with  a  faithful  pen.  Butler  Boswellized  him- 
self. For  Boswell's  Life,  as  has  been  remarked 
before,  is  the  greatest  collection  of  "  ana  "  in  the 
language.  It  consisted  of  Johnson's  table-talk 
strung  on  a  biographical  thread. 

Personally  I  find  it  hard  to  draw  the  line  be- 
146 


Table-Talk  and  Jest  Books 

tween  general  table-talk  and  anecdotes  told  of  cer- 
tain persons:  most  collections  include  both.  But 
such  works,  of  whatever  kind,  consisting  of  detached 
scraps  of  great  men's  wit,  are  an  agreeable  form  of 
reading,  and  an  old-established  one.  The  Greeks 
possessed  volumes  of  excerpts  from  people's  con- 
versation, and  some  Latin  wrote  a  book,  now  un- 
fortunately lost,  under  the  piquant  title  of  De  Jocis 
Ciceronis.  The  great  age  of  such  collections  began, 
however,  with  the  Renaissance,  when  Poggio  the 
Florentine  collected  his  "  facetiae."  My  own  ex- 
tracts from  Poggio  are  included  in  a  German  col- 
lection of  1603,  all  written  in  Latin,  which  gives  also 
the  "  facetiae  "  of  other  wits,  notably  of  Nicodemus 
Frischlin  of  Balingen.  This  man  was  a  German 
scholar  of  exceptional  brilliance  who  finally,  on  be- 
ing incarcerated  for  the  last  of  many  escapades, 
broke  his  neck  trying  to  escape.  We  have  no  such 
University  professors  of  classics  now.  "  Ana " 
so-called  begin  with  the  Scaligerana,  which  gave  the 
drastic  conversation  of  the  younger  Scaliger  as  re- 
corded by  two  of  his  disciples.  The  success  of  this 
led  to  a  rush  in  France.  Every  one  who  had  known 
an  eminent  man  deceased  rushed  out  with  a  volume 
of  table-talk;  Thuana,  Perroniana,  etc.  The  Sor- 
beriana  "  sive  excerpta  ex  ore  Samuelis  Sorbiere  " 
was  famous  in  its  day,  but  I  find  it  very  dull.  Much 
the  best  collection  is  Menagiana,  "  Bon  Mots, 
Rencontres  Agreables,  Pensees  Judicieuses,  et  Ob- 
servations Curieuses  de  M.  Menage,"  of  which  the 

147 


Books  in  General 

second  edition  (my  copy)  is  dated  1694-5.  This 
man  was  a  scholar,  knew  everybody  and  had  a  sharp 
tongue :  he  is  extremely  good  reading,  though,  now- 
adays, very  little  read.  The  contents  of  both  of 
these  books  are  arranged  (as  is  Butler's)  under  sub- 
ject-headings, in  alphabetical  order.  The  same 
order  is  observed  in  Selden's  Table-Talk,  the  next 
best  book  of  the  kind  to  Boswell  in  our  tongue.  It 
was  published  after  Selden's  death  by  his  private 
secretary,  and  is  full  of  extraordinarily  sensible  and 
witty  things.  And,  unlike  many  wits,  Selden  always 
possessed  a  sense  of  responsibility.  He  remarked 
himself  (under  heading  "Wit,"  as  he  did  not 
realize)  that 

"  He  that  lets  fly  all  he  knows  and  thinks  may  by 
chance  be  satyrically  witty.  Honesty  sometimes 
keeps  a  man  from  growing  rich,  and  civility  from 
being  witty." 

Few  of  the  wits  whose  sayings  are  collected  are  so 
scrupulous.  Our  other  classical  example  in  the  kind 
is  Coleridge's  Table-Talk,  which  is  full  of  fine  criti- 
cism, funny  stories,  and  good  epigrams. 

These  collections  shade  off  into  the  ordinary  jest 
book.  After  all,  there  is  no  clear  division  between 
stories  told  by  a  dead  man  and  stories  collected  and 
published  by  a  living  one,  between  stories  about  one 
man  and  stones  about  fifty  different  men.  When 
148 


Table-Talk  and  Jest  Books 

the  new  learning  was  still  new,  men  had  a  mania  for 
collecting  pointed  anecdotes  about  the  eminent. 
The  fattest  book  of  the  kind  I  know  is  Casper  Ens's 
Epidorpidum,  published  at  Cologne  in  the  early 
seventeenth  century.  It  is  full  of  the  remarks  of 
Alexander  to  Diogenes  and  Pope  Innocent  to  St. 
Vitus  and  the  repartees  of  King  Pyrrhus  of  Epirus 
to  a  recalcitrant  phalanx.  Right  on  into  the  eigh- 
teenth century  works  with  titles  like  Elite  de  Bon- 
Mots,  and  full  of  such  historical  personages,  were 
popular  on  the  Continent.  English  jest  books  were 
perhaps  more  local  and  contemporary  in  their  refer- 
ences. Our  eighteenth-century  ancestors  were  ad- 
dicted to  anecdotes  about  Mr.  Quin  and  Mr.  Foote 
and  what  the  Duke  of  Wharton  said  to  the  Bishop. 
In  our  own  time  the  larger,  if  not  the  smaller,  public 
still  shows  some  demand  for  collections  of  anecdotes 
of  this  sort:  and  popular  weeklies  of  the  Answers 
and  Tit-Bits  type  usually  seem  to  find  it  desirable  to 
print  columns  of  stories  about  Henry  Irving,  Mr. 
Gladstone,  and  such  people.  But  it  is  a  long  way 
from  Tit-Bits  to  Samuel  Butler:  which  shows  where 
one  may  land  oneself  if  one  does  not  know  where 
to  draw  a  firm  line  when  shading-off  is  apparently 
gradual.  I  cannot  review  Butler  at  this  time  of  day; 
but  there  are  very  few  books  existing  which  contain 
more  sense  to  the  square  inch  than  this.  Though 
the  worst  of  his  books  is  good  reading,  the  Note- 
Books  is  as  certainly  his  finest  book  as  Boswell's 
Johnson  is  the  finest  of  Johnson's. 

149 


Stephen  Phillips 


THE  announcements  of  Stephen  Phillips's 
death  must  have  carried  many  people's 
thoughts  backward.  Me  personally  it 
took  back  to  a  time,  years  ago,  when  I  was  in  the 
first  flush  of  my  youthful  beauty  and  sitting  out  at 
a  country  dance.  Coloured  lamps  burned  between 
boughs,  trees  gently  swished  under  a  summer  sky, 
the  sound  of  violins  and  the  glide  of  many  feet  pene- 
trated softly  from  a  distance;  and  a  partner,  whose 
face  was  shadowy  pale  in  the  faint  light,  sat  clasping 
her  knees,  looking  out  into  the  night,  and  talking  in 
a  deep  ecstatic  voice  of  Marpessa,  Herod,  and  Paolo 
and  Francesca.  It  was  not  merely  that  she  thought 
that  I  was  that  sort  of  person:  the  same  thing  was 
happening  in  every  county  in  England.  Phillips 
had  the  biggest  boom  that  any  English  poet  has  had 
for  a  generation.  The  extravagance  of  the  eulogies 
seems  very  strange  now.  There  was  scarcely  a 
critic  who  did  not  lose  his  balance.  I  have  just  been 
looking  up  some  of  these  panegyrics,  and  the  pitch  of 
them  makes  one  feel  a  little  sadly  for  a  man  who 
outlived  so  great  and  so  early  a  fame.  The  history 
of  literature  was  ransacked  for  comparisons. 
Chapman,  Webster,  Wordsworth,  Shakespeare  him- 
self were  brought  in :  and  almost  the  most  modest  of 
ISO 


Stephen  Phillips 

the  assessors  was  Mr.  William  Archer,  who  de- 
scribed Phillips  as  "  the  elder  Dumas  speaking  with 
the  voice  of  Milton."  I  remember  the  Daily  Mail 
devoting  its  magazine  page  to  a  description  of  the 
poet,  in  the  course  of  which  it  explained,  with  charac- 
teristic love  of  figures,  that  here  was  a  man  who 
had  discovered  how  to  make  £1000  a  year  out  of 
poetry.  But  it  did  not  last.  The  climax  of 
Phillips's  success  came  with  Paolo  and  Francesca; 
the  subsequent  plays  were  received  with  a  dimin- 
uendo of  warmth;  and  in  the  last  few  years  he  was 
comparatively  ignored. 

The  early  adoration  was  absurd  but  not  incompre- 
hensible. It  was  due,  one  might  say,  to  the  fact 
that  Phillips  was  not  an  original  writer.  Much  used 
to  be  made  of  a  certain  trick  he  had  of  accenting 
occasional  lines  of  blank  verse  in  a  strange  manner: 
on  the  strength  of  this  he  was  treated  as  a  revolu- 
tionary innovator  in  English  prosody.  In  reality, 
in  spite  of  this  one  peculiarity,  he  was  anything  but 
an  innovator.  He  had  an  ear  for  the  magniloquent 
progress  of  Milton's  verse  and  the  crooning  music 
of  Tennyson's;  he  had  a  great  facility  for  repro- 
ducing them;  and  to  those  who  are  susceptible  only 
to  artistic  effects  which  (though  they  are  unconscious 
of  it)  remind  them  of  effects  previously  experienced, 
he  seemed,  therefore,  to  be  a  consummate  artist. 
He  gave  them  precisely  what  they  had  learnt  to  de- 
sire and  expect  from  a  poet,  the  familiar  splendours 

151 


Books  in  General 

and  the  familiar  silences,  the  familiar  agonies  and 
the  familiar  tendernesses,  the  scents,  the  flowers,  the 
gems,  the  old  words  with  their  unmistakable  associ- 
ations, the  brilliant  single  lines,  with  here  and  there 
an  alliteration  and  here  and  there  an  onomatopoeia. 
His  work  was  not,  of  course,  a  mere  compost.  He 
added  something.  His  emotions,  though  not  deep, 
were  genuine  enough;  he  had  a  pretty  fancy;  and 
he  had  a  considerable  knowledge  of  how  to  produce 
effects  on  the  stage.  Paolo  and  Francesca  was  cer- 
tainly in  every  way  superior  to  most  of  the  other 
attempts  which  have  been  made  in  our  time  at  stage- 
plays  in  blank  verse.  It  was  effective  in  the  theatre. 
One  remembers  the  excitement  about  the  skilful  end- 
ing: the  murder  behind  the  scenes,  the  bodies 
brought  in,  the  murderer's  revulsion: 

/  did  not  know  the  dead  could  have  such  hair. 
Hide  them.     They  look  like  children  fast  asleep. 

But  those  who  did  not  shrink  from  comparing  it 
with  Romeo  and  Juliet  omitted  to  notice  the  same 
deficiencies  as  appeared  in  all  his  work.  He  was 
largely  derivative  and  there  was  very  little  hard 
brainwork  behind  his  verse. 

Herod,  Ulysses,  and  Nero  were  all  less  well 
made:  the  last  two  were  panoramas.  In  all  three 
the  author  depended  on  succulent  or  flamboyant 
"  purple  patches  "  for  his  effects,  descriptions  too 

152 


Stephen  Phillips 

full  of  redundant  metaphor  and  violent  outbursts  of 
picturesque  but  too  flimsy  rhetoric.  There  was  lit- 
tle characterization  in  them,  the  persons  were  pup- 
pets in  the  hands  of  the  contriver  of  stage  spectacles: 
they  were  carried  off  by  brilliant  and  exotic  scenery 
and  costumes,  by  the  romantic  language,  and  by  the 
real  and  skilful,  if  conventional,  melody  of  the  verse. 
All  the  best  qualities  of  Stephen  Phillips,  the  quali- 
ties that  gave  people  a  thrill  they  were  unaccustomed 
to  in  the  theatre  of  his  time,  are  quintessentialized  in 
Herod's  megalomaniac  speeches  and  in  the  oratori- 
cal Marlowesque  remark  that  one  of  the  suitors  in 
Ulysses  made  to  Penelope : 

Thou  hast  caught  splendour  from  the  sailless  sea 
And  mystery  from  the  many  stars  outmatched. 

His  defects  were  observed  by  few  when  he  was  a 
popular  dramatist:  but  those  readers  who  only  know 
him  by  his  later  work  will  misjudge  him  if  they 
think  that  he  never  had  more  power  than  he  showed 
in  that.  His  more  recent  volumes,  written  in  ill- 
health,  would  never  have  got  him  a  reputation. 
Here  and  there  the  old  bravura  appeared,  and  there 
is  a  short  lyric  in  the  volume  of  19 13  which  is  cer- 
tainly equal  to  anything  in  the  early  book  of  poems 
with  which  he  made  his  name  —  and  in  which  he 
showed  signs  of  contact  with  the  "  movement "  of 
the  'nineties.  But  from  most  of  these  later  poems 
the  life  had  gone,  leaving  the  imitative  structure 

153 


Books  in  General 

naked  to  the  eye.  His  last  volume,  Panama  and 
other  Poems,  was  issued  just  before  he  died  by  his 
original  publisher,  Mr.  John  Lane;  and  the  way  in 
which  he  had  succumbed  to  his  influences  was  very 
evident.     Lines  on  the  Canal  such  as 

Chagres   by   Dam  stupendous   of  Gatun 

not  merely  remind  one  of  Milton  but  are  exact 
mechanical  reproductions  of  Milton. 

Incidentally  the  difficulties  of  literary  biography 
are  illustrated  by  his  obituary  notices.  My  Daily 
News  gave  his  age  as  forty-nine,  my  Times  gave  it 
as  fifty-one;  and  looking  into  the  Encyclopedia 
Britannica  to  see  which  of  these  estimates  it  would 
confirm,  I  found  that  it  alleged  him  to  be  forty-seven. 
The  Encyclopadia  says  that  he  was  at  Queens'  Col- 
lege, Cambridge,  when  he  joined  Mr.  Benson's  com- 
pany; the  Times  that  he  was  cramming  at  Scoones'. 
When  we  have  this  conflict  of  evidence  about  a  con- 
temporary who  was  known  personally  to  hundreds 
of  people  in  London,  where  are  we  with  Eliza- 
bethans and  Romans?  Personally  I  believe  that, 
in  the  matter  of  birth-dates,  nothing  is  really  reliable 
—  not  even  a  man's  own  statement  —  except  public 
registers. 


154 


Gray  and  Horace  Walpole 

IF  a  gentleman  in  Calabria  digs  up  with  a  spade 
a  hitherto  unknown  fragment  of  the  obscure 
Latin  historian  P.  Pomponius  Fatto  there  is 
great  excitement  about  it,  and  research  congratulates 
itself  upon  its  achievements.  I  can  quite  appreciate 
the  feeling.  All  treasure-trove  is  exciting.  The 
smallest  recovery  from  the  long-buried  past  is  worth 
having;  it  may,  in  itself,  fill  a  gap  somewhere  and  en- 
courages the  hope  of  greater  finds.  But  why  not 
make  just  as  much  of  a  palaver  about  Dr.  Paget 
Toynbee's  disinterment  of  nearly  a  hundred  "  new  " 
letters  by  the  poet  Gray?  The  new  letters  are  in- 
cluded in  The  Correspondence  of  Gray,  Walpole, 
West,  and  Ashton  (Oxford  University  Press,  2 
vols.)  ;  and  they  were  found  in  the  collection  of 
Captain  Sir  F.  E.  Waller,  who  was  recently  killed  in 
action,  and  to  whose  memory  the  volume  is  dedi- 
cated. Gray,  Horace  Walpole,  Richard  West,  and 
Thomas  Ashton  formed  a  "  Quadruple  Alliance  "  at 
Eton.  West  went  on  to  Oxford,  the  other  three 
to  Cambridge.  We  get  first  of  all  an  exchange 
between  all  four;  then  West  dies,  in  his  twenties; 
then,  years  afterwards,  relations  with  Ashton  are 
broken;  and,  finally,  there  is  a  long  series  that 
passed  between  Walpole  and  Gray  up  to  the  time  of 

155 


Books  in  General 

the  poet's  death  in  177 1.  In  all  there  are  248  let- 
ters; of  these  153  were  written  by  Gray,  eighty-nine 
of  which  have  never  been  published  before.  Others 
have  never  before  been  printed  in  full,  and  few 
have  escaped  maltreatment  by  previous  editors. 
Their  errors  ranged  from  deliberate  alteration, 
truncation,  and  blending  to  bad  transcription  and  un- 
intelligent acceptance.  How  easily  the  most  comic 
errors  may  creep  into  a  text  where  each  editor  ne- 
glects to  use,  or  has  not  access  to,  original  sources 
may  be  shown  by  the  history  of  a  single  word. 
Gray  wrote  a  Latin  poem  about  the  god  of  Love  in 
which  one  line  began  "  Ludentem  fuge."  This 
was  printed  by  Miss  Berry  as  "  Sudentem  fuge"; 
and  this  has  been  "  corrected  "  by  subsequent  editors 
into  "  Sudantem  fuge"! 

The  characters  of  the  correspondents  come  out 
very  clearly.  Even  when,  just  after  they  have  left 
school,  they  are  all  writing  rather  affectedly  (and 
with  a  plethora  of  classical  quotation),  Ashton  is 
obviously  the  one  fundamentally  insincere  member 
of  the  group.  He  is  hyperself-conscious,  nastily  ar- 
tificial. Later  on  he  even  refers  in  Joseph  Surface's 
very  own  words  to  his  "  noble  sentiments  " :  this  was 
clearly  the  man  to  make,  by  his  double-dealing,  the 
temporary  breach  between  Gray  and  Walpole,  and, 
ultimately,  to  compel  Walpole  to  cast  him  off  by  his 
incivility  when  Walpole  was  no  longer  useful  to  him. 
Richard  West,  son  of  an  Irish  Lord  Chancellor,  has 

156 


Gray  and  Horace  Walpole 

no  apparent  defect  save  excessive  seriousness. 
There  is  a  touch  of  the  priggish  mixed  with  the  high- 
mindedness  and  generosity  of  this  able  young  in- 
valid; but  one  can  understand  Gray's  devotion  to 
him.  Some  of  the  poetry  of  his  here  given  (he  ap- 
peared in  Dodsley's  Miscellany  by  the  way)  is  sur- 
prisingly good.  He  was  the  Arthur  Hallam  of  the 
eighteenth  century. 

The  Walpole  letters  are,  as  always,  unsurpassable 
of  their  kind.  His  undergraduate  letter  (in  parody 
of  Addison's  descriptions  of  Italy)  relating  a  jour- 
ney from  London  to  Cambridge,  is  admirable;  but 
the  letters  describing  his  continental  tour  with  Gray 
are  better,  and  those,  still  later,  about  the  beau 
monde  of  Paris  are  perfect.  There  is  a  peculiar 
charm  too  about  the  correspondence  with  Gray  as  to 
the  details  and  publication  of  his  works,  the  half- 
solemn,  half  whimsical  concentration  on  the  tiny 
antiquarian  details  to  which  each  was  addicted, 
the  eager  little  controversies  and  explorations, 
the  odd  little  jokes.  But  though  Gray,  taking 
his  correspondence  as  a  whole,  considering  both 
volume,  range,  and  formal  excellence,  cannot  con- 
test Walpole's  position  as  the  greatest  of  Eng- 
lish letter-writers,  there  is  a  flavour  about  his 
letters  that  makes  them  peculiarly  delightful.  Wal- 
pole writes  fully  dressed,  though  with  exquisite 
manner;  Gray  writes  naturally,  and  without  ob- 
vious reserve  sometimes  even  gambolling.     There 

157 


Books  in  General 

may  be  people,  familiar  with  Gray  only  through 
his  elevated  and  sombre  verse,  who  fancy  him 
an  exceedingly  self-contained  and  formal  man, 
who  feel  (like  the  person  who  greatly  amused  him 
by  addressing  him  as  "The  Rev.  T.  Gray")  that 
he  simply  must  have  been  a  divine.  There  were  cer- 
tainly contemporaries  of  his  who  met  him  and  got 
the  impression  that  he  was  constitutionally  grave, 
reticent,  aloof.  His  letters  show  that  he  was  any- 
thing but  that  to  his  friends.  The  author  of  the 
Eleffy  habitually  "  played  the  goat."  There  are  a 
whole  string  of  skit  letters  here:  in  one  he  writes 
to  Walpole  as  "  Honner'd  Nurse,"  addressing  the 
illiterate  screed  "  to  mie  Nuss  att  London  " ;  in  an- 
other he  wallows  in  Oriental  imagery  about  the 
dew  of  the  morning;  in  another  he  applies  to  stag- 
nant Cambridge  a  whole  long  passage  from  Isaiah 
describing  deserted  Babylon,  the  home  of  dragons 
and  haunt  of  screech-owls.  He  had  a  great  habit 
of  ending  his  letters  with  something  openly  idiotic. 
Once  he  bursts  out  with  "  Pray,  did  you  ever  see  an 
elephant?  ";  another  time  his  peroration  is: 

"The  Assizes  are  just  over.     I  was  there;  but 
I  a'nt  to  be  transported.     Adieu  1  " 

and  another  excursion  concludes  with  a  ludicrous 
burlesque  of  the  type  of  commonplaces  usually  to  be 
found  in  letters: 

"  There  is  a  curious  woman  here  that  spins  Glass, 
158 


Gray  and  Horace  Walpole 

and  makes  short  Aprons  and  furbelow' d  petticoats 
of  it,  a  very  genteel  wear  for  summer,  &  discover's 
all  the  motions  of  the  limbs  to  great  advantage. 
She  is  a  successour  of  Jack,  the  Aple  dumpling  Spin- 
ner's: my  Duck  has  eat  a  Snail  &c. :  &  I  am  —  yours 
sincerely  T.  G." 

Those  who  think  of  poets  as  persons  without  humour 
who  live  in  a  permanent  exaltation  and  are  quite 
unlike  reasonable  beings  will  be  shocked  with  Gray's 
remarks  when  he  had,  to  the  publisher's  alarm,  with- 
drawn a  poem  from  his  forthcoming  small  volume: 

"  but  to  supply  the  place  of  it  in  bulk,  lest  my  work 
should  be  mistaken  for  the  works  of  a  flea  or  a 
pismire,  I  promised  to  send  him  an  equal  weight  of 
poetry  or  prose:  so,  since  my  return  hither,  I  put 
up  about  two  ounces  of  stuff:  viz.  The  Fatal  Sis- 
ters, The  Descent  of  Odin  .  .  .  with  all  this  I  shall 
be  but  a  shrimp  of  an  author." 

On  a  night  nine  years  before  this,  General  Wolfe, 
as  his  boat  crept  towards  the  Quebec  bank  of  St. 
Lawrence,  had  recited  the  Elegy  to  his  companions 
and  told  them  that  he  had  rather  have  written  that 
poem  than  take  Quebec. 

Gray's  judgments  on  other  authors  (though  he 
was  unjust  to  the  more  fermentative  kind  of  French- 
man) were  uniformly  good.  He  suspected  Ossian, 
but  hoped  he  was  a  fraud  for  the  sake  of  the  jest. 

159 


Books  in  General 

If,  he  said,  Macpherson  had  done  it  all  to  hoax 
fools,  "  I  would  undertake  a  journey  into  the  High- 
lands only  for  the  pleasure  of  seeing  him."  He 
read  Boswell's  early  book  on  Corsica  and  almost 
prophetically  observed: 

"  The  pamphlet  proves  what  I  have  always  main- 
tained, that  any  fool  may  write  a  most  valuable  book 
by  chance,  if  he  will  only  tell  us  what  he  heard  and 
saw  with  veracity." 

In  politics  he  was  interested  only  mildly,  but  he 
liked  to  gossip  about  them.  "  Do  oblige  me,"  he 
writes  to  Walpole, 

"  with  a  change  in  the  Ministry :  I  mean,  something 
one  may  tell,  that  looks  as  if  it  were  near  at  hand; 
or  if  there  is  no  truth  to  be  had,  then  a  good  likely 
falsehood  for  the  same  purpose.  I  am  sorry  to  be 
so  reduced." 

"  A  good  likely  falsehood  " :  is  it  not  in  perpetual 
demand? 


1 60 


A  Horrible  Bookseller 

PEOPLE  often  complain  that  booksellers  know 
too  little  about  the  goods  they  sell.  If  only, 
the  argument  is,  books  were  sold  by  men  of 
taste,  familiar  with  their  contents,  the  public  would 
buy  more  good  literature:  as  things  are,  the  blind 
bookseller  leads  the  blind  customer.  There  is  some- 
thing in  this.  An  educated  bookseller  can  actually 
educate  other  people.  Many  intelligent  young  per- 
sons reach  the  age  of  twenty-one  without  having  met 
a  single  person  with  the  habit  of  good  reading,  and 
do  not  "  get  on  to  "  literature  because  it  has  never 
been  suggested  to  them  that  they  will  like  it.  Book- 
sellers may  act  as  teachers.  There  are  booksellers, 
though  not  many,  who  make  a  practice  of  "  nursing  " 
promising  young  customers,  gradually  cultivating 
their  taste  until  they  become  confirmed  book-lovers 
and  book-buyers.  One  such  complained  to  me  not 
long  ago  that  he  had  had  scores  of  likely  colts  taken 
away  from  him  by  Lord  Kitchener,  and  did  not 
know  how  many  of  them  would  come  back.  That 
is  an  ideal  sort  of  man  for  the  trade  in  modern 
literature.  One  might  say,  in  fact,  that  in  a  perfect 
world  (from  the  book-buyer's  point  of  view)  the 
dealers  in  new  books  would  know  everything  about 
books,  and  the  dealers  in  old  books  would  know 

i6i 


Books  in  General 

nothing  whatever  about  them.  The  point  of  this 
last  subsection  is  obvious,  but  the  other  day  I  had  an 
experience  that  greatly  fortified  my  view.  I  had 
often  met  the  second-hand  bookseller  whose  learn- 
ing prevented  one  from  buying  anything  cheap  from 
him;  I  have  now  encountered  one  whose  interest 
in  his  subject  prevented  one  from  buying  anything 
at  all. 

He  was  not  so  much  a  really  learned  man  as  a 
man  with  what  is  called  "  an  inexhaustible  fund  of 
information."  It  is  quite  possible  that  if  he  had 
had  a  real  rarity  in  his  shop  he  would  have  known 
nothing  about  it.  But  about  the  promiscuity  of  his 
reading  there  was  no  doubt.  When  I  entered  the 
shop  he  was  seated  at  a  table  absorbing  something 
that  looked  as  if  it  might  be  the  Travels  of  Living- 
stone or  Speke.  His  spectacles  were  on  his  fore- 
head, his  elbows  on  the  table,  his  hands  in  his  hair; 
and  his  beard  almost  touched  his  book.  "  Do  you 
minB  if  I  go  through?  "  I  said.  "  Sairtainly,"  he 
said,  betraying  his  origin.  "  And  what  may  you  be 
interested  in?"  "Oh  .  .  .  books,"  I  replied 
vaguely.  "  That  is  a  verra  conseederable  cate- 
gory," he  observed.  Was  it  poetry  I  liked?  he  went 
on.  I  murmured  "  Yes,"  and  he  led  me  to  the 
place  where  he  kept  it.  But  before  I  had  got  my 
fingers  on  a  book  he  made  it  evident  that  it  was 
he  and  not  I  that  was  going  to  have  the  "  look 
162 


A  Horrible  Bookseller 

round."  Here,  for  example,  was  a  volume  of  Kirke 
White.  Had  I  ever  read  him?  How  wonderful 
was  that  hymn  (quoted  at  length)  of  his  I  What  a 
career!  He  was  a  butcher's  son  and  a  lawyer's 
clerk.  He  had  a  gift  for  mathematics,  and  they 
gave  him  a  sizarship  at  Cambridge.  He  would 
have  been  one  of  the  greatest  figures  in  English 
literature  had  he  lived.  Was  I  interested  in  Italian 
books?  Well,  then,  perhaps  I  would  like  a  good 
copy  of  (!!!)  /  Promessi  Sposi.  It  was  extraordi- 
nary the  number  of  copies  of  that  book  which  must 
have  been  printed.  But  there  was  no  supply  without 
a  demand. 

I  tried  in  vain  to  check  the  torrent  with  some 
sort  of  remark  which,  though  polite,  might,  never- 
theless, have  an  air  of  finality.  It  was  no  good. 
My  fingers  never  got  beyond  touching  the  back  of 
a  book  before  he  had  taken  down  another,  pulled 
me  round,  and  fixed  me  with  a  glittering  eye  for 
which  the  Ancient  Mariner  himself  would  have  been 
tempted  to  offer  a  large  sum.  Godwin,  now.  Did 
I  like  Caleb  Williams?  Yes,  of  course!  But  had 
I  read  his  History  of  England?  It  was  by  way  of 
being  a  reply  to  Clarendon.  Clarendon  was  a  great 
writer.  But  he  was  not  impartial.  And  the  worst 
of  it  was  that  he  seemed  to  be  impartial  when  he  was 
most  unfair.  When  he  was  sacrificing  everything 
for  his  King  he  little  thought  how  his  loyalty  would 

163 


Books  in  General 

be  rewarded.  He  was  too  moral  for  Charles  II; 
but,  what  was  worse,  he  kept  the  purse-strings  too 
tight.  He  would  not  give  him  money  for  one  of 
his  mistresses.  Was  it  Barbara  Palmer?  No,  it 
was  not  Barbara  Palmer,  and  it  was  not  Nelly  Gwyn. 
At  any  rate,  it  was  one  of  them.  And  when,  in  the 
end,  the  grant  was  made  to  her,  she  died  before  she 
got  the  money! 

This  appeared  to  amuse  the  old  man.  When  he 
had  laughed  himself  out,  it  was  to  resume  with  some 
work,  dated  1784,  which  contained  a  recipe  for 
making  a  Prime  Minister:  the  chief  ingredients  be- 
ing hypocrisy,  mendacity,  corruption,  and  cant. 
This  opened  up  a  large  field  of  speculation.  Who 
was  Premier  in  1784?  Why,  of  course,  it  was 
young  Billy  Pitt!  ("Yes,"  I  said.)  No,  it  was 
Rockingham.  ("Yes,"  I  said.)  No,  it  wasn't;  it 
was  Bute.  So  it  proceeded.  I  spent,  in  all,  two 
hours  in  that  shop;  in  the  course  of  which  time  I 
had  stolen  glances  at  about  six  worthless  books. 
For  all  I  know  it  was  as  full  of  gems  of  purest  ray 
serene  as  are  the  dark  unfathomed  caves  of  ocean. 
I  left  without  making  a  single  purchase,  and  the 
proprietor  seemed  quite  hurt  at  this  unfriendly  re- 
sponse to  his  attentions.  How  that  old  man  earns 
his  living  I  don't  know.  I  think  he  must  have  priv- 
ate means.  But  in  future  I  shall  have  a  warmer 
feeling  than  ever  for  the  sort  of  red-nosed  second- 
hand bookseller,  now,  unfortunately,  not  very  com- 
164 


A  Horrible  Bookseller 

mon,  who  knows  only  the  outsldes  of  books,  and 
who  sits  smoking  on  a  heap  of  rubbish  in  the  comer 
of  his  shop  with  the  air  of  a  tramp  resting  on  a 
roadside  pile  of  stones. 


i6i 


The  Troubles  of  a  Catholic 

BEING  at  the  moment  in  bed  with  influenza, 
I  was  at  once  incapable  of  intellectual  effort 
and  in  need  of  spiritual  sustenance.  I  had 
therefore  been  reading  a  little  Theology.  The 
more  modern  works  of  the  kind  in  my  possession  are 
at  once  too  profound  in  thought  and  too  arid  in 
phraseology,  so  I  worked  rapidly  backwards.  One 
never  knows  what  one  is  going  to  come  across,  and  in 
the  beginning  of  A  Just  Discharge  to  Dr.  Stilling- 
fleet's  Unjust  Charge  of  Idolatry  Against  the  Church 
of  Rome  with  a  Discovery  of  the  Vanity  of  his  late 
Defense  in  his  Pretended  Answer  to  a  Book  Entitled 
Catholicks  No  Idolaters  By  way  of  Dialogue  Be- 
tween Eunomius,  a  Conformist,  and  Catharinus,  a 
Nonconformist,  I  struck  a  very  pathetic  thing.  The 
work  was  written,  I  believe,  by  the  Catholic  contro- 
versialist Godden,  and  published  in  1677.  At  that 
time  it  was  difficult  for  Catholics  to  get  anything  out 
in  England,  and  this  work  was  published  at  Paris. 
Hence  the  unhappy  author's  statement  about 
"Errata": 

*'  The  English  Press  being  watch'd  of  late,  as  the 
Orchard  of  the  Hesperides  was  of  old,  and  a  ne- 
cessity arising  from  thence  of  making  use  of  a  Paris 
i66 


The  Troubles  of  a  Catholic 

Printer,  who  understands  not  a  word  of  English,  the 
Reader  will  have  no  cause  to  wonder,  if  he  some- 
times meet  with  ant  for  and,  bu  for  but,  te  for  the, 
is  for  it,  tit  for  tis,  wish  for  with,  etc.,  and  often- 
times with  false  Pointings,  words  unduly  joined,  and 
syllables  un-artificially  divided  at  the  end  of  lines, 
as  Ro-me,  appropria-te,  and  the  like.  I  can  assure 
him,  the  Correction  of  the  Press  cost  little  less  pains 
than  the  writing  of  the  Treatise." 

In  that  century  a  great  many  English  books  were 
printed  on  the  Continent,  at  Paris,  Douai,  and  else- 
where; and  the  situation  thus  candidly  explained 
must  have  been  a  common  one.  A  collection  of 
English  books  printed  abroad,  which  would  be  in- 
teresting for  other  reasons,  might  also  have  an 
added  interest  as  a  repository  of  comic  misprints. 
But  my  disease  must  have  brought  me  very  low  that 
I  can  spend  my  time  thinking  of  that. 


167 


The  Bible  as  Raw  Material 

MR.  GEORGE  MOORE'S  new  novel,  The 
Brook  Kerith,  is  a  Biblical  story.  Mr. 
Moore  has  adopted  the  legend  which  says 
that  Our  Lord  survived  the  Crucifixion.  He  is 
taken  away  ahve  and  joins  a  colony  of  the  Essenes, 
complications  afterwards  arising  with  St.  Paul. 
The  book  is  named  after  the  site  of  the  Essene  set- 
tlement; Mr.  Moore  personally  toured  the  Holy 
Land  looking  for  a  really  eligible  position.  The 
story  opens  with  a  description  of  the  boyhood  of 
Joseph  of  Arimathea:  a  beginning  which  at  least 
avoids  the  reproach  of  being  obvious. 

One  might  almost  say  that  literature  about  Bibli- 
cal personages  can  only  hope  to  be  good  if  its  writers 
either  deal  with  episodes  that  are  not  related  in  the 
Bible  or  if  they  tell  the  Bible  stories  from  an  entirely 
novel  and  unconventional  point  of  view.  Anatole 
France's  story  about  Pontius  Pilate,  The  Procurator 
of  Judaea,  has  this  last  quality,  and  owes  its  success 
mainly  to  the  odd  and  unexpected  angle  from  which 
the  subject  is  approached.  The  unusual  angle  we 
may  at  least  expect  from  Mr.  George  Moore.  At- 
tempts at  covering  the  same  ground  as  the  Bible,  at 
amplifying  an  already  fine  thing,  are  almost  pre- 
i68 


The  Bible  as  Raw  Material 

destined  to  failure.  One  can  understand  the  temp- 
tation. A  modern  writer  comes  across  a  noble  story 
or  a  fine  lyric  passage,  and  thinks,  "  What  a  scandal 
that  this  should  be  buried  away  out  of  sight  in  the 
Old  Testament!  It  is  just  the  theme  for  me." 
The  lure  is  so  strong  that  one  contemporary  poet 
has  attempted,  and  failed  (through  not  ignomin- 
iously),  to  rewrite  David's  Lament  for  Jonathan, 
and  another  has  endeavoured  to  adapt  the  dramatic 
poem  Job  to  the  modern  stage.  It  was  a  lamentable 
affair,  redeemed  only  from  complete  inconspicuous- 
ness  by  a  highly  incongruous  chorus  inspired  by 
Swinburne  and  by  an  arresting  entry  of  Satan  with 
the  salutation: 

Ho  Job!     How  goes  it? 

No  modern  —  but  I  have  not  thoroughly  ransacked 
my  memory  —  has  really  succeeded  in  rewriting  a 
Bible  story.  The  most  striking  of  recent  efforts  was 
Mr.  Sturge  Moore's  Judith.  Mr.  Robert  Trevel- 
yan's  poem.  The  Foolishness  of  Solomon  (a  title 
that,  for  some  vague  reason,  I  always  resent),  be- 
longed to  the  other  class  of  works  dealing  with 
Biblical  personages  (though  he  brought  in  a  Chinese 
mandarin  as  well),  but  not  on  the  Biblical  lines. 
The  most  recent  effort  at  elaborate  treatment  of  the 
New  Testament  story  was,  I  suppose,  Maeterlinck's 
Mary  Magdalene.  But  in  spite  of  its  unorthodoxy 
and  the  novelty  (at  least  as  far  as  the  Bible  is  con- 

169 


Books  in  General 

cerned,  for  some  of  it  was  borrowed  from  a  Ger- 
man) of  the  incidents,  that  play  scarcely  competed, 
in  point  of  dialogue  or  dramatic  force,  with  the 
more  old-fashioned  narratives  of  Matthew,  Mark, 
Luke,  and  John. 

Milton  is  the  one  English  writer  who  has  done 
anything  with  Biblical  materials  on  a  large  scale. 
It  will  be  observed,  however,  that  in  Paradise  Lost 
he  enormously  elaborated  the  story  in  Genesis;  that 
his  Adam  and  Eve  are  somewhat  colourless;  and 
that  the  finest  parts  of  his  poem  are  not  directly 
concerned  with  "  man's  first  disobedience  and  the 
fruit,"  but  deal  with  regions  into  which  the  author 
of  Genesis  did  not  penetrate.  In  Samson  Agonistes 
he  did  take  a  story  from  the  Bible  and  make  out  of 
it  a  work  of  art  equal  to  almost  anything  in  our 
language.  Byron's  Cain  might  mostly  have  been 
about  Nietzsche  for  all  the  connexion  It  has  with 
the  Bible:  but  it  Is  not  very  good.  Almost  every 
fine  subject  in  the  Scriptures  must  have  been  attacked 
at  one  time  or  another.  There  have  been  a  few 
good  short  Biblical  poems,  like  Browning's  Saul. 
But  the  only  other  really  reputable  Biblical  poem 
on  a  large  scale  that  I  can  think  of  is  Charles  Wells's 
Joseph  and  His  Brethren,  which  has  strength  as  a 
story  and  some  passages  of  fine  imagery.  Wells 
belonged  to  the  generation  of  Keats  and  lived  on 
into  our  own  time.  He  was  an  engineer,  stopped 
writing  when  young,  and  was  admired  by  Rossetti 
170 


The  Bible  as  Raw  Material 

and  Swinburne.  His  poem,  however,  cannot  really 
be  considered  such  good  reading  as  the  Bible  account 
of  the  same  story.  One  of  the  episodes  that  came 
within  his  purview,  that  of  Joseph  and  Potiphar's 
wife,  has  been  a  subject  for  poets  in  all  ages.  The 
last  endeavour  that  I  can  recall  to  make  something 
out  of  it  was  a  somewhat  bejewelled  one  of  Sir 
Edwin  Arnold's.  The  longest,  I  should  think,  is 
Joshua  Sylvester's  intolerably  tedious  series  of 
couplets  entitled  The  Maiden's  Blush.  Why  he  con- 
ferred that  title  upon  such  a  poem  I  don't  know,  un- 
less he  was  thinking  of  what  might  happen  to  the 
less  robust  of  his  female  readers.  Those  parts  of 
Holy  Writ  which  are  of  purely  historical  interest 
have  not  been  freely  drawn  on  by  English  writers. 
I  don't  remember  that  much  has  been  done  with 
the  Maccabees,  and  the  chronicles  of  the  Kings  of 
Israel,  which  supplied  Racine  with  a  subject  for  his 
Athalie,  have  left  English  writers  cold.  Jehu  drove 
furiously,  Jeroboam  the  son  of  Nebat  made  Israel 
to  sin,  and  Rehoboam  afflicted  his  people  with  scor- 
pions instead  of  whips;  but  their  violence  does  not 
seem  to  fire  the  poetic  imagination  as  does  that  of 
Herod,  about  whom  we  know  very  little  more.  But 
Herod,  of  course,  was  fond  of  the  Russian  ballet; 
which  brings  him  closer  to  us. 


171 


How  to  avoid  Bad  English 

GOOD  books  on  the  practice  of  writing  are 
rare.  Sir  A.  Quiller-Couch's  On  the  Art 
of  Writing  is  extraordinarily  good.  It  con- 
tains the  lectures  he  delivered  at  Cambridge  just 
before  the  war;  and  even  readers  who  do  not  desire 
to  write  at  all  will  find  Sir  Arthur's  jokes  very 
amusing  and  his  criticisms,  general  and  particular, 
sound  and  (what  is  more  unusual)  new.  He 
touches  a  great  variety  of  subjects,  though  always  in 
some  relation  to  the  main  theme.  He  is  especially 
illuminating  on  the  Authorized  Version,  and  on  Ho- 
mer's skill  in  dealing  with  the  "  Primary  Difficulty  of 
Verse  " —  that  is  to  say,  the  difficulty  of  filling  up 
the  interstices  between  highly  emotional  passages 
without  lapsing  into  dull  prosiness.  His  most  di- 
verting chapter  is  that  on  what  he  calls  *'  Jargon," 
which  he  distinguishes  from  Journalese.  The  dis- 
tinction he  draws  may  be  appreciated  if  I  concoct 
examples  of  both  commodities.  Writing  in  "  Jar- 
gon "  I  might  say: 

"  In  the  case  of  Sir  Arthur  Quiller-Couch  I  am 
proud  and  happy  to  associate  myself  in  the  fullest 
sense  with  a  work  of  this  useful,  elevating,  instruc- 
tive, and  educative  character." 
172 


How  to  avoid  Bad  English 

Writing  in  Journalese,  as  he  defines  it,  I  might  say : 

"  '  Q.'s  brilliant  book  goes  to  the  root  of  the 
matter.  It  strikes  home.  He  is  out  to  slay  the 
dragons  of  bad  writing.  He  burns  them  with  the 
fire  of  his  passion.  He  lashes  them  with  the  scourge 
of  his  invective.  He  tears  them  to  shreds  and  tat- 
ters with  the  shrapnel  of  his  ridicule.  He  will  not 
sheathe  the  sword  until  ..." 

Yes.  .  .  .  The  first  kind  consists  of  woolly,  indefi- 
nite words,  of  redundancies  and  shapeless  prolixi- 
ties; the  man  who  writes  the  second  is  trying  to  pro- 
duce what  he  believes  to  be  "  literature  "  by  means 
of  imagery  and  rhythmical  movement.  Sir  Arthur 
says  that  the  greatest  propagators  of  Jargon  are 
public  bodies,  politicians,  and  so  on;  but  he  recog- 
nizes that  journalists  also  use  it.  The  two  things, 
in  fact,  are  often  seen  in  one  article.  I  conceive  that 
there  might  be  passages  which  would  fall  into  either 
of  Sir  Arthur's  classes.  But  there  is  a  clear  differ- 
ence between  bad  sentences  produced  by  an  effort 
to  say  something  and  those  produced  by  an  effort  to 
say  something  vividly.  All  bad  writers,  however, 
have  common  defects,  and  these  are  dealt  with  in 
other  chapters. 

Every  one  who  has  thought  about  the  art  at  all 
has  discovered  for  himself  the  truths  that  Sir  Arthur 

173 


Books  in  General 

tabulates.  One  must  aim  at  accuracy  (a  word  that 
covers  almost  everything  that  is  needful)  and  at 
clarity;  one  must,  normally,  prefer  the  concrete  to 
the  abstract  word,  and  the  short  word  to  the  long; 
and  one  must  avoid  the  superfluous  adjective.  How 
well  we  know  these  rules;  how  certain  we  are  of 
their  validity;  how  feebly  we  struggle  to  obey  them  I 
At  all  times  the  ready-made  sentence,  the  makeshift 
epithet,  the  pot-shot  image  must  have  been  ready  to 
the  hand.  In  the  present  age,  when  we  live  in  a 
honeycomb  of  print  and  begin  each  day  by  exposing 
ourselves,  before,  during,  or  after  breakfast,  to 
masses  of  the  weakest  English  we  can  find,  the  job 
of  writing  well  is  more  difficult  than  ever.  Our 
fluency  is  the  measure  of  our  accursed  memory. 
We  have  bales  of  phrases  ready  for  every  experience 
we  describe ;  our  pigeon-holes  are  stuffed  with  dead 
metaphors  and  bogus  synonyms;  and  we  are  always 
ready  to  say  in  six  words  what  ought  to  be  said  in 
two.  Every  time  we  sit  down  at  a  desk  or  open  our 
lips  to  speak,  the  nymphs  Jargonia  and  Journalesia, 
besieging  us  as  the  sylphs  besieged  St.  Anthony,  hold 
out  their  hands  full  of  glittering  treasures  which  will 
save  us  the  trouble  of  thinking.  Usually  we  do  not 
even  see  them;  we  find  the  fatal  gifts  in  our  hands 
and  employ  them  without  remembering  their  origin. 
And  the  descent  to  hell  is  rapid. 

It  is  good  to  revise:  to  correct,  to  improve,  and 
to  delete.  Few,  even  of  the  most  careful  writers, 
174 


How  to  avoid  Bad  English 

find  their  proof-sheets  free  from  trite  and  super- 
fluous words  which  they  would  be  ashamed  to  pub- 
lish. It  Is  better  still  to  think  long  before  writing, 
to  maKe  sure  that  one's  thoughts  are  clear-cut  before 
one  gives  them  a  visible  form.  That  habit  it  is 
a  writer's  duty  to  acquire.  But  it  does  not  do  to  be 
incessantly  and  acutely  conscious  of  the  qualities  of 
good  writing  and  the  difficulty  of  securing  them. 
That  way  madness  lies.  Sometimes,  to  a  man  who 
broods  overmuch  on  these  things,  every  phrase  will 
appear  a  cliche,  and  every  word  a  dummy.  "  God 
help  me !  "  he  will  moan,  "  I  have  called  the  sun 
'  bright '  and  the  grass  '  green  ' !  Millions  of  men 
before  me  have  written  '  bright  sun  '  and  '  green 
grass.'  I  know  I  did  not  think  freshly  and  inde- 
pendently at  these  objects.  I  put  the  adjectives 
down  mechanically.  I  have  merely  heard  that  the 
grass  was  green.  Why  haven't  I  looked  at  it 
through  my  own  eyes?  If  a  real  writer  looked  at 
it,  I  don't  for  a  moment  suppose  that  its  greenness 
would  be  the  attribute  which  would  impinge  most 
forcibly  upon  him.  Very  likely  it  isn't  green  at  all." 
This,  I  say,  does  not  do.  I  don't  suggest  that  there 
is  anything  peculiar  about  grass  which  should  make 
a  novel  statement  about  it  impossible.  In  fact, 
Swinburne  said  that  grass  Is  hair,  and  Mr.  Chester- 
ton has  very  probably  said  that  it  is  red.  I  merely 
use  "  green  grass  "  as  an  example  of  the  sort  of 
thing  that  an  exaggerated  fastidiousness  might  lead 
a  man  to  question  in  his  own  work. 

175 


Books  in  General 

There  remains  one  property  of  good  prose  that 
no  amount  of  painstaking  or  instruction  can  produce. 
That  is  rhythm.  It  is,  indeed,  remarkable  that  one 
of  the  most  elaborate  analyses  of  prose  rhythms 
hitherto  made  was  made  by  a  writer  whose  own 
prose  is  anything  but  musical.  Either  Providence 
has  given  a  man  an  ear  or  it  has  not;  if  it  has  not, 
he  will  not  write  great  prose.  But  his  prose  will  be 
better  in  proportion  as  he  obeys  the  principles  of 
good  writing  as  "  Q."  enunciates  them.  One  sug- 
gestion more  might  be  useful  for  him.  That  is, 
that  he  will  be  well  advised  in  making  his  uneuphon- 
ious  sentences  short  if  he  desires  his  writing  to  be  an 
efficient  instrument  of  persuasion. 


176 


Woodland  Creatures 

"•y^ARNASSUS  In  Piccadilly,"  is  the  headline  I 
1—^  see  in  my  paper.  Follows  an  account  of  a 
A  "  seance  "  promoted  by  Miss  Elizabeth  As- 
quith  in  aid  of  the  Star  and  Garter  Home.  Ten  or 
twelve  poets  read  works  of  their  own  to  an  audience 
of  four  hundred  who  had  paid  a  guinea  apiece.  Out- 
side the  house  a  large  concourse  watched  the  poets 
arrive.  There  were  Mr.  Yeats,  Sir  O.  Seaman,  Mr. 
Hewlett,  Sir  Henry  Newbolt,  Mr.  Binyon,  Mr.  de- 
la  Mare,  Mrs.  Woods,  Mr.  Belloc,  and  Mr.  W.  H. 
Davies,  who  is  described  as  looking  like  "  one  of  his 
own  woodland  creatures."  I  read  that  one  of  the 
reciters  intoned,  that  another  was  bluff,  and  that  a 
third  ought  to  get  somebody  else  to  read  for  him; 
also  that  Mr.  Birrell,  the  chairman,  sat  with  his 
head  buried  in  his  hands  until  the  arrival  of  the 
first  comic  turn,  Mr.  Belloc's.  But  I  wish  I  had 
been  there :  for  the  account  does  not  tell  me  how  it 
was  really  done. 

Did  the  poets  sit  in  the  audience  and  march  up 
to  the  platform  one  by  one  as  their  turns  came? 
Did  they  stand  out  of  sight,  each  gliding  in  singly, 
and  then  retiring  into  the  antral  seclusion  of  the 

177 


Books  in  General 

wings  when  ten  minutes  was  up?  Or  did  they 
rather,  as  I  prefer  to  think,  sit  on  the  platform,  the 
whole  dozen  of  them  in  a  semicircle,  listening  to, 
and  discreetly  applauding,  each  other's  efforts.  I 
am  sorry  I  missed  it.  Some  of  them  will  have  been 
exalted  by  a  sense  of  the  holiness  of  their  work; 
their  eyes  will  have  looked  out  across  the  audience 
with  a  prophetic  and  otherworldly  fire.  Others  will 
have  been  uneasy  and  not  knowing  (unless  a  table 
was  thoughtfully  provided)  what  to  do  with  their 
feet.  And  one  or  two,  I  think,  will  have  been  pre- 
occupied with  the  control  of  their  own  faces,  which, 
on  such  an  occasion,  must  have  "  strained  at  the 
leash  of  dignified  deportment." 

Why  is  it  that  so  many  people  feel  awkward  when 
they  are  present  at  a  public  recitation  by  a  poet  of 
his  own  verse;  and  why  should  writers  shrink  from 
such  recitations?  Amusement  on  such  occasions  is 
closely  allied  to  sheepishness :  both  spring  from  a 
feeling  of  inappropriateness,  a  sense  that  "  the  fit- 
ness of  things  "  is  being  violated.  We  are  accus- 
tomed, of  course,  to  the  other  kind  of  recitation,  the 
reading  by  an  interpreter  who  is  not  a  creator,  and 
who  is  not  exposing  his  heart  in  public:  the  prize 
child  and  the  local  elocutionist  who  declaims  Tenny- 
son's Revenge,  daintily  fluttering  his  fingers  in  the 
air  when  he  comes  to  the  part  about  the  pinnace 
which  is  like  a  bird.  But  our  poets  themselves  have 
not  recited  much.  It  was  not  always  so.  "  'Omer 
178 


Woodland  Creatures 

smote  his  bloomln'  lyre  "  in  public;  he  had  nowhere 
else  to  smite  it,  for  he  (presumably)  could  not  write, 
and  his  audiences  could  not  read.  Every  composer 
of  tribal  lays,  from  Tubal-Cain  (unless  his  songs 
were  Lieder  ohne  Worte)  to  the  Druidic  harpists, 
sang  his  compositions  to  his  admiring  fellows  with- 
out embarrassment;  troubadours  and  mediaeval 
laureates  had  no  objection  at  all  to  public  recitation. 
Most  foreigners,  one  supposes,  do  not  feel  so 
strongly  as  we  do  about  it  now;  but  the  timidity  of 
Englishmen  in  the  matter  is  very  pronounced.  I  am 
sure  that  nothing  short  of  the  needs  of  a  War  Fund 
would  have  induced  some  of  the  Piccadilly  perform- 
ers to  face  the  ordeal. 

It  is  all  a  part  of  our  national  reserve,  that  very 
reserve  which,  perhaps,  accounts  for  the  greatness 
and  volume  of  our  poetry.  In  poetry  our  feelings 
find  an  outlet.  We  have  the  habit  of  concealing  our 
finest  sentiments  and  our  profoundest  emotions. 
We  don't  mind  putting  them  into  books  and  then  run- 
ning round  the  corner  out  of  sight.  But  we  dislike 
unbosoming  them  viva  voce  in  the  actual  physical 
presence  of  strangers.  Our  dislike  of  "  scenes  " 
covers  equally  the  public  row  in  a  restaurant  and  the 
public  demonstration  of  our  yearnings  after  virtue 
and  the  stirrings  of  our  hearts  when  we  hear  the 
nightingale  or  listen  to  the  Atlantic  at  night.  We 
sit  bolt  upright  at  concerts;  look  at  pictures  with  our 
mouths  set  like  vices;  and  observe  "  Yes,  very  nice  " 
as,  with  wistfulness  in  our  breasts,  we  stand  on  a 

179 


Books  in  General 

hill  and  look  at  a  wooded  panorama  under  the 
moon.  The  grotesque  Englishman  who  stares  at 
a  sunset  and  then  laughs  and  says  it  looks  like  a 
fried  egg  is  really  bolting  in  terror  from  the  admis- 
sion that  it  looks  like  the  flaming  ramparts  of  the 
world.  So,  if  somebody  gets  up  to  recite  his  most 
intimate  feelings,  we  feel  it  as  almost  an  indecenqr. 
He  is  usually  bashful  about  it  himself,  and  unable 
therefore  to  recite  with  that  abandonment  which  will 
do  his  poem  justice.  The  audience,  at  least  that 
part  of  it  which  is  most  intelligent  and  self-conscious, 
feels  as  if  it  were  intruding.  It  is  like  eavesdrop- 
ping or  opening  a  stranger's  letters.  And  every- 
body is  conscious  of  the  national  titter  in  the  back- 
ground. When  the  authors  of  Prize  Poems  at  the 
Universities  give  the  oflicial  reading  of  their  verses, 
their  friends  invariably  assemble  to  grin  in  the  gal- 
leries. Undergraduates  have  still  some  natural- 
ness. They  titter  aloud,  but  the  adult  Englishman 
titters  in  silence.  It  is  reserve  that  brings  forth  the 
titter  and  it  is  still  more  reserve  that  suppresses  it; 
just  as  it  is  reserve  that  makes  our  soldiers  sing, 
not  invocations  to  England,  home,  or  glory,  but 
comic  songs  about  cowardice  and  death. 

The  foregoing  series  of  platitudes,  slightly  varied 
In  accordance  with  each  writer's  tastes  and  talents, 
is  invariably  repeated  when  the  character  of  English 
people  is  under  discussion.  But  it  may  be  that,  at 
any  rate  in  our  attitude  towards  poetry,  we  are 
i8o 


Woodland  Creatures 

changing.     In  the  last  four  or  five  years  the  habit 
of  public  readings  has  been  growing;  and  some  of 
our  poets  have  grown  quite  addicted  to  them.     This 
may  be  a  time  of  transition:  if  the  enthusiasts  for 
recitation  keep  at  it  hard  enough,  people's  constraint 
may  be  overcome,  and  it  may  be  regarded  as  quite 
an  ordinary  and  natural  thing  for  a  man  to  stand 
on  a  platform  and,  with  all  the  passion  he  can  re- 
lease and  all  the  vocal  modulation  he  can  command, 
chant  his  lyrics  to  congregations  which  will  yield 
themselves  to  him  with  all  the  spontaneity,  though 
less  than  all  the  gestures  and  ejaculations,  of  a  Welsh 
revivalist's    converts.     It   is    a    commonplace    that 
poetry  gains  by  being  spoken;  and  that  if  verse  were 
always  read  and  never  recited,  poets  would  be  in 
danger  of  getting  out  of  touch  with  natural  speech- 
rhythms.     We  could  do  with  a  little  less  amusement 
and  a  little  more  excitement;  and  we  might  as  well, 
if  cowardice  or  a  sense  of  humour  are  the  only  things 
that  hold  us  back,  hold  and  attend  public  readings 
until  we  are  as  unselfconscious  about  them  as  we  are 
about  church  services  or  political  meetings.     The 
worst  of  it  is  that  poets  do  not  invariably  read  well, 
and  that  few  persons  with  the  taste  for  standing  on 
a  platform  and  declaiming  are  competent  to  take 
an  author's  place  as  reciter  of  his  work.     There  is 
such  a  thing  as  the  inspired  reader  of  other  people's 
verse ;  but  the  understanding,  the  inclination,  and  the 
voice  cannot  be  expected  to  come  often  together. 
When  the  author  himself  is  reciting  you  can  at  least 

i8i 


Books  in  General 

be  certain  that  the  speaker  —  unless  he  is  a  very 
"  advanced  "  poet  Indeed  —  understands  the  work 
which  he  Is  repeating.  With  other  performers  one 
always  has  to  take  one's  chance.  From  the  profes- 
sional reciter  Goci  save  us  all. 


182 


Other  People's  Books 

LIKE  most  people,  I  possess  a  number  of 
books  which  I  have  not  read.  I  am  not 
referring  to  volumes,  such  as  the  Speculum 
Morale  of  Vincent  of  Beauvais  or  the  commentary 
of  CEcolampadius  on  St.  John's  Gospel,  which  I 
bought  merely  because  they  looked  pleasant  and 
which  nobody  on  earth  could  be  expected  to  read. 
I  mean  books  in  English  and  of  comparatively  re- 
cent date.  There  is,  for  example,  Kant's  Critique 
of  Pure  Reason,  for  which,  in  a  weak  moment,  I 
paid  some  shillings  with  the  feeling  that,  as  a  cogita- 
tive being,  I  ought  not  leave  so  notable  a  stone  un- 
turned. The  feeling  passed  and  never  came  back. 
And  there  is  Ranke's  History  of  the  Popes  —  up  to 
the  present  undisturbed  by  me;  there  are  The  Last 
Days  of  Pompeii,  Romola,  Vittoria,  Carlyle's  essays 
on  Burns  and  Scott,  JVhat  Maisie  knew.  What  Katy 
did,  and  dozens  of  other  modern  works,  some  of 
which,  if  I  live,  I  shall  certainly  read,  and  others  of 
which,  I  am  sure,  I  shall  never  begin.  But  it  makes 
no  difference.  Whether  he  has  read  them  or  not,  a 
man's  own  books  get,  in  a  manner,  stale  to  him.  If 
a  book  remains  for  years  unopened  on  one's  shelves 
it  becomes  increasingly  difficult  to  read  it.  Yet  if 
one  finds  another  edition  of  it  in  somebody  else's 

183 


Books  in  General 

house  one  may  fly  to  it,  and,  under  the  same  condi- 
tions, one  may  read  or  re-read  almost  anything  one 
finds. 

So  it  is,  at  the  moment,  with  me.  I  am  in  a  place 
previously  unknown  to  me.  It  is  bestrewn  with 
books;  and,  penned  to  the  house  by  the  brilliant  sum- 
mer weather,  I  have  been  doing  some  miscellaneous 
reading.  For  one  thing  I  have  gone  solidly  once 
more  through  Mr.  Thomas  Hardy's  verse.  How 
extraordinarily  good  it  is  I  And  how  remarkably  he 
has  gone  on  improving,  especially  as  a  metrist.  But 
more  than  ever,  after  a  heavy  dose  of  these  com- 
pressed statements  of  his  point  of  view,  one  realizes 
his  determined  and  unmitigated  gloom.  It  is  at  its 
densest  in  fVessex  Poems,  and  in  places  one  laughs 
outright  at  it.  He  illustrated  the  book  himself,  his 
drawing  is  naive,  and  the  sketch  of  two  floors  of  a 
church,  the  pews  (and  two  lovers)  above,  and  the 
skulls  and  cross-bones  below,  has  an  "  I  will  be  grim 
at  all  costs  "  air  about  it  that  robs  it  of  all  its  horror. 
The  story  attached  is  a  neat  one.  The  man  is  a  con- 
sumptive about  to  die;  he  asks  the  woman  if  she 
loves  him?  She  falsely  says  "Yes"  in  order  to 
brighten  his  last  hours.  He  dies,  and  her  life  is 
ever  after  blighted  because  she  cannot  reconcile  her- 
self to  a  Universe  in  which  the  telling  of  such  lies  is 
a  moral  obligation.  There  is  another  small  drama 
in  which  a  woman,  maltreated  by  her  husband,  dies, 
telling  her  old  lover  that  she  wishes  she  had  married 
184 


Other  People's  Books 

him  and  that  her  child  could  have  been  his  child, 
and  asking  him  to  see  that  the  brutal  husband  does 
not  ill-treat  the  child.  The  brutal  husband  remar- 
ries and  does  ill-treat  the  child.  One  day  he  finds 
the  lover  mourning  on  the  dead  wife's  grave,  and 
demands  by  what  right  he  is  there.  The  lover,  re- 
membering the  death-bed  remark  and  suddenly  see- 
ing a  chance  of  saving  the  child,  says  that  he  has 
every  right  to  be  there  as  he  was  really  the  father 
of  the  child.  His  supposed  offspring  is  then  left  on 
his  doorstep,  to  be  looked  after  carefully,  and  he 
spends  his  time  wondering  whether  he  was  justified 
in  telling,  etc.  Probably  these  stories,  if  expanded 
into  novels,  might  convince ;  as  narrative  poems  they 
do  not;  and  when  they  are  squeezed  into  the  brief 
compass  of  the  Satires  of  Circumstance  they  are 
grotesquely  Life  as  Thomas  Hardy  makes  it  and 
not  Life  as  Thomas  Hardy  sees  it. 

It  is  a  little  bold  in  these  days  to  admit  that  one 
hasn't  read  the  whole  of  Mr.  Conrad's  works,  but 
until  this  week  I  had  never  laid  hands  on  Almayer's 
Folly.  It  was  his  first  book.  In  his  Reminiscences 
he  gives  an  account  of  how  it  was  begun,  in  a  Pimlico 
lodging-house,  when  he  was  a  sea  captain  and  carried 
about  the  ocean  for  five  years  until  (when  he  was 
thirty-five)  he  finished  it.  When,  half-done  and  laid 
by,  it  was  yellowing  and  mouldering,  he  showed  it  to 
his  first  reader,  a  Cambridge  man  going  to  Australia 
for  his  health,  and  asked  him  if  it  was  worth  com- 

185 


Books  in  General 

pleting.  The  passenger,  with  a  nice  economy  of 
words,  answered  "  Distinctly,"  and  Captain  Conrad 
was  thus  encouraged  to  proceed.  I  had  read  all  this 
before,  and  also  the  noveHst's  statement  that  before 
this  he  had  not  attempted  literature  and  had  hardly 
ever  written  even  a  letter  —  though  I  suppose  there 
must  have  been  an  occasional  entry  in  a  log.  I  have 
certainly  been  surprised  by  the  craftsmanship  of 
Almayer's  Folly.  Not  only  is  the  structure  good, 
but  the  writing,  except  in  one  or  two  places,  is  aston- 
ishingly finished,  accurate,  and  restrained.  It  is  ab- 
surdly unlike  a  first  book.  Its  weakness,  as  it  ap- 
pears to  me,  lies  in  the  dullness  of  the  principal  char- 
acter. It  is  difficult  to  keep  up  one's  interest  in  a 
person  whose  main  characteristic  is  his  impotence. 
But  it  doesn't  matter  so  much  here  as  it  might,  for 
the  subsidiary  story  of  Dain  and  Nina  is  very  fasci- 
nating, and  the  real  hero,  after  all,  is  none  of  the 
people,  white  or  Malay,  but  the  Bornean  river  (its 
topography  is  not  always  clear  to  me)  on  whose 
overgrown  banks  they  all  live  and  the  changes  of 
which,  night  and  day,  are  described  with  marvellous 
eloquence  and  certainty. 


i86 


Peacock 

FINALLY,  after  various  minor  excursions,  I 
have  settled  down  to  the  works  of  Thomas 
Love  Peacock,  of  whom  I  had  read  noth- 
ing before  except  some  poems.  Why?  I  don't 
know,  but  I  think  his  name  has  vaguely  repelled  me. 
Anyhow,  I  am  thankful  now  that  I  have  been  able 
to  come  fresh  to  Peacock's  novels.  He  has  a  few 
devotees,  but  it  is  surprising  that  so  admirable  a 
writer  is  not  more  read.  Nightmare  Abbey  and 
Headlong  Hall  are  not  great  masterpieces,  but  they 
are  certainly  small  masterpieces.  They  belong  to 
the  class  of  intellectual  comedy  to  which  Candide, 
and,  in  some  measure,  Rasselas  belong;  in  fact,  they 
must  certainly  have  been  modelled  on  Candide. 
They  are  burlesques  of  oneself  and  one's  friends, 
and  every  other  discussing,  theorizing  person  and  his 
friends.  Charlatans  of  all  kinds,  literary,  political, 
eccelesiastical,  and  scientific,  and  philosophers  of  all 
kinds  from  the  man  who  believes  that  upward 
progress  is  inevitable  to  the  man  who  believes  that 
downward  progress  is  undeniable,  from  the  secret 
revolutionary  conspirator  to  the  professional  sceptic; 
he  gets  them  all  in,  quintessentializes  their  doctrines 
into  exquisitely  flowing  prose,  and  knocks  their  heads 
together  with  charming  ruthlessness.  Any  extract 
will  illustrate  the  flow  of  ihis  dialogue : 

187 


Books  in  General 

"  *  The  anatomy  of  the  human  stomach,'  said  Mr. 
Escot,  '  and  the  formation  of  the  teeth,  clearly  place 
man  in  the  class  of  fungivorous  animals.' 

*'  '  Many  anatomists,'  said  Mr.  Foster,  '  are  of 
a  different  opinion,  and  agree  in  discerning  the  char- 
acteristics of  the  carnivorous  classes.' 

"  '  I  am  no  anatomist,'  said  Mr.  Jenkinson,  '  and 
cannot  decide  where  doctors  disagree;  in  the  mean- 
time, I  conclude  that  man  is  omnivorous,  and  on  that 
conclusion  I  act.' 

"  '  Your  conclusion  is  truly  orthodox,'  said  the 
Reverend  Doctor  Gaster;  'indeed,  the  loaves  and 
fishes  are  typical  of  a  mixed  diet,  and  the  piractice 
of  the  Church  in  all  ages  shows ' 

"  '  That  it  never  loses  sight  of  the  loaves  and 
fishes,'  said  Mr.  Escot." 

If  loud  asseveration  on  my  part  sends  to  Peacock 
a  few  people  who  have  not  tried  him  before,  I 
shall  feel  that  the  recent  rain  has  not  descended  in 
vain. 


I88 


Wordsworth's  ^^  Personal 
Dullness 

THE  Strange  Case  of  William  Wordsworth 
is  to  me  of  perennial  interest,  and  I  have 
just  emerged  from  several  days'  burrowing 
under  Professor  C.  G.  Harper's  two  enormous  vol- 
umes entitled  Pf^illiam  Wordsworth,  His  Life, 
JVorks,  and  Influence.  It  is  a  conscientious  and 
valuable  piece  of  work,  very  fully  documented,  and 
containing  much  out-of-the-way  information  and  a 
great  deal  of  sensible,  if  not  always  illustrious,  criti- 
cism. The  information  may  perhaps  be  a  little  too 
ample  for  the  weaker  brethren.  The  map  (show- 
ing lakes,  mountain  ranges  (brown)  and  so  on)  of 
Wordsworth's  country  with  which  we  open  gives 
the  clue  to  Professor  Harper's  exhaustive  method. 
Every  procurable  date  of  Wordsworth's  continen- 
tal programme  is  copied  out;  and  we  are  even  sup- 
plied with  the  winter  and  summer  timetables  of  the 
Grammar  School  at  Hawkshead  which  he  attended 
and  at  which  (as  Professor  Harper  rather  senten- 
tiously  observes)  an  education  different  in  kind,  but 
perhaps  not  inferior  in  quality,  to  that  supplied  by 
Eton  was  bestowed  upon  him.  New  light  is  thrown 
on  certain  incidents  in  his  career;  his  "  circle  "  is 

189 


Books  in  General 

elaborately  described;  and  a  very  charming  picture 
is  given  of  his  sister  Dorothy.  But  the  old  problem 
of  Wordsworth's  defects  remains  much  where  it  did. 

It  Is  a  commonplace  that  Wordsworth  is  the  most 
uneven  of  great  poets.  Every  textbook  writer  tells 
one  that  when  he  was  inspired  he  was  a  giant,  that 
when  he  was  not  he  wrote  maundering  doggerel,  and 
that  he  himself  never  knew  when  he  was  and  when 
he  was  not  at  his  best.  The  Idiot  Boy  has  been  held 
up  to  the  ridicule  of  generations  —  beyond  its 
deserts  perhaps.  The  point  was  most  forcibly  put 
by  J.  K.  Stephen  when  he  wrote  a  parody  of  Words- 
worth's "  Two  voices  are  there,"  saying  that  one  of 
the  voices  was  that  of  the  sea,  etc.,  and  the  other 
that  of  "  an  old  half-witted  sheep."  But  a  thing 
less  frequently  faced,  and  never,  as  far  as  I  know, 
properly  explained,  is  his  personal  lack  of  attrac- 
tiveness. Flippant  persons  may  be  met  who  dismiss 
him  as  "a  pompous  old  dullard";  but,  generally 
speaking,  whenever  one  hears  such  a  remark  it 
comes  from  some  one  who  openly  confesses  that  he 
cannot  stand  Wordsworth's  poetry  at  any  price,  and 
that  he  has  very  seldom  attempted  to  read  it.  The 
people  who  are  in  difficulties  are  those  (and  I  am 
among  them)  who  agree  without  qualification  that 
Wordsworth  is  our  greatest  poet  since  Milton,  but 
who  cannot  sincerely  say  that  they  are  drawn 
towards  him  as  a  man.  If  they  —  any  one  who 
does  not  feel  like  this  is  happy  and  I  do  not  speak 
190 


Wordsworth's  Personal  Dullness 

for  him  —  pretend  to  be  fond  of  him  their  pretence 
is  glaring.  If  they  do  not  stick  up  for  him  they 
feel  that  they  are  being  faithless  to  a  poet  who  still 
stands  in  need  of  all  the  propagandists  he  can  get. 
It  is  not  easy  to  face  the  truth  about  him  even  in  the 
solitude  of  one's  own  chamber.  But,  by  heaven, 
he  is  a  dull  man ! 

*'  There  was  a  boy  "  (as  Wordsworth  would  him- 
self begin)  who  at  one  time  used  nightly  to  dine  in 
hall  under  a  large  oil-painting  of  the  poet.  In  this 
painting  Wordsworth  was  represented  sitting  on  a 
rock  against  a  landscape  background  which  was  an 
agreeable  and  symbolical  blend  of  wildness  and  tran- 
quillity. The  poet  was  clad  in  broadcloth;  he  held 
a  book  in  his  hand;  his  face  was  smooth  and  pink; 
and  his  mild  eye  surveyed  the  spectator  as  though 
the  latter  were  a  lamb  about  to  receive  a  pat  of  the 
hand  and  his  blessing.  There  he  sat,  meditative  and 
benevolent,  while  the  soup  gave  place  to  the  fish 
and  the  fish  to  the  beef;  and  when  one  had  drained 
off  the  last  dregs  of  one's  beer  one  went  off  still 
conscious  of  that  meditative  and  benevolent  eye. 
It  became  almost  maddening.  Every  other  great 
English  poet  had  something  fascinating  about  him. 
Even  Milton,  in  spite  of  certain  unsociable  qualities, 
had  a  certain  attractive  force,  a  touch  of  the  virulent, 
and  the  scars  of  suffering.  But  this  Wordsworth! 
His  genuine  philanthropy  was  unquestionable.  His 
portrait  might,  one  thought,  be  that  of  a  pioneer  of 

191 


Books  in  General 

the  Anti-Slave  Trade  Agitation,  or  an  inventor  of 
Sunday  Schools,  or  an  endower  of  Bands  of  Hope. 
But  not  a  poet;  oh,  not  a  poet  I 

So  it  is  with  all  his  portraits.  Professor  Harper 
gives  a  selection  of  them.  Always  the  sage  is  a 
bland  and  upright  man;  the  mens  conscia  recti  typi- 
fied. But  never  a  sign  of  eloquence  or  fire;  of  the 
magnificent  oratory  of  his  great  passages,  of  the 
music  and  profound  tenderness  which  are  so  profuse 
in  his  poetry.  Not  a  sign  of  stress;  not  a  mark  of 
any  but  the  most  complacent  vicarage  thought;  no 
passion,  no  enthusiasm,  no  challenge,  and  no  re- 
sponse. It  is  not  to  be  explained  away,  as  Professor 
Harper  attempts  to  explain  it  away,  by  saying  that 
the  myth  of  "  Daddy  Wordsworth  "  (as  FitzGerald 
called  him)  is  based  on  a  disproportionate  view  of 
his  life.  Professor  Harper  thinks  that  far  too  little 
attention  has  been  paid  to  his  early  revolutionary 
period,  when  the  ideals  of  the  French  Revolution 
gripped  him,  and  far  too  much  to  his  later  period 
of  orthodoxy  and  respectability.  Professor  Harper 
himself  attempts  to  redress  the  balance.  He  gives 
as  full  an  account  as  he  can  of  the  earlier  Words- 
worth and  of  his  relations  with  Revolutionary 
France.  But,  as  Wordsworth's  French  friends 
would  have  said  (provided  they  were  not  ashamed 
of  using  such  a  worn-out  tag)  plus  qa  change  plus 
c'est  la  meme  chose.  The  early  Wordsworth  may 
have  been  a  different  being;  but  Professor  Harper 
192 


Wordsworth's  Personal  Dullness 

certainly  does  not  prove  that  he  was.  From  birth 
to  death  In  this  biography  he  appears  as  the  same 
high-minded,  staid,  sober,  solemn  monument.  He 
joined  in  the  Revolution  not  so  much  a  "  kid-glove 
revolutionary  "  as  a  woollen-glove  and  warm  com- 
forter revolutionary.  Had  he  stayed  in  France  he 
might  have  made  even  the  Terror  respectable. 

On  myself  and  on  others  Wordsworth's  portraits 
and  his  biographies  always  leave  this  sort  of  impres- 
sion: the  impression  of  an  old  bore  to  whom  one 
would  not  be  rude  simply  and  solely  because  one 
would  not  willingly  hurt  the  feelings  of  a  person  so 
worthy.  And  then  one  goes  back  to  his  poetry  — 
and  his  prose  —  and  hears  a  voice  of  almost  unsur- 
passed grandeur  speaking  the  deepest  of  one's  un- 
expressed thoughts,  appealing  to  and  drawing  out 
all  the  divinest  powers  in  man's  nature.  Of  his 
greatness  surely  no  rational  and  unbiassed  being 
could  entertain  the  slightest  doubt.  He  is  not  so 
popular  or  so  frequently  read  as  some  poets,  and  that 
is  not  difficult  to  explain.  His  absence  of  humour, 
or  an  equivalent  vivacity,  is  not  in  itself  an  explana- 
tion; but  the  accompanying  general  absence  of  any 
luxurious  appeal  to  the  senses  is.  He  speaks  direct 
to  the  labouring  intellect  and  the  sensitive  heart; 
and  the  enjoyment  of  him,  if  great,  is  usually  enjoy- 
ment of  the  austerer  kind,  like  mountain-climbing. 
There  is  nothing  soft  or  enervating  or  luxurious 
which  can  make  reading  him  an  aesthetic  debauch. 

193 


Books  in  General 

He  does  not  often  sing  to  a  tune  which  gives  one 
pleasure  even  if  one  does  not  attend  to  the  words. 
Without  being  in  the  least  obscure  he  demands  an 
effort  from  the  reader  parallel  to  his  own.  That,  at 
least  as  much  as  the  tediousness  of  many  of  his  writ- 
ings (and  his  irritating  classification  of  them),  is  the 
reason  of  his  comparative  lack  of  popularity. 
But  .  .  . 


194 


Henry  James's  Obscurity 

HENRY  JAMES'S  last  work  was  his  essay 
on  Rupert  Brooke,  written  as  an  introduc- 
tion to  Letters  from  America.  Mr. 
James's  essay  is  a  personal  appreciation,  and  not  in 
any  way  a  biographical  memoir.  Such  a  memoir, 
by  another  hand,  will  follow.  Mr.  James  left  un- 
finished two  novels,  and  a  third  volume  of  the  series 
begun  with  A  Small  Boy  and  Others  and  Notes  of  a 
Son  and  Brother. 

Presumably  the  public  (which  might  well  make 
a  start  with  the  short  stories  of  which  Mr.  Seeker 
has  already  published  eight  half-crown  volumes, 
very  pleasant  to  the  eye)  will  at  last  begin  to  buy 
James's  novels.  They  have  certainly  not  bought 
them  in  the  past.  He  was,  in  critical  circles,  al- 
most universally  recognized  as  one  of  the  three  or 
four  greatest  of  English  writers  living  a  week  ago. 
But  some  of  his  books  had  not  even  gone  into  a 
second  edition.  He  was  intermittently  talked  about 
in  the  Press.  Fifteen  years  or  so  ago  he  had  a 
boom  of  the  sort;  then  there  was  a  period  of  com- 
parative newspaper  obscurity;  in  the  last  three  or 
four  years  he  suddenly  and  silently,  like  a  star  ap- 
pearing from  behind  a  cloud,  took  his  unchallenged 

195 


Books  in  General 

place  In  the  firmament  as  one  of  the  established 
great.  But  he  was  not  widely  read.  Daisy  Miller, 
ever  so  many  years  ago,  had  a  fairly  general  suc- 
cess; The  Golden  Bowl,  also,  I  should  think,  sold 
well.  But  many  people  who  paid  lip  homage  to 
him  were  very  unfamiliar  with  his  work. 

In  no  case  would  a  man  with  his  interests,  his 
approach,  his  subtlety  and  avoidance  of  the  grosser 
excitements,  his  restraint  and  delicacy,  have  sold  by 
the  hundred  thousand.  But  his  appeal  was  still  fur- 
ther limited  by  the  legend  of  his  style.  I  remember 
reading  an  old  novel  written  in  the  days  when  Rob- 
ert Browning  was  an  Incomprehensible  studied  by  a 
Cult.  The  heroine  of  it  gave  herself  away  rather 
by  remarking,  "Oh,  Mr.  Browning  I  I've  never 
been  able  to  understand  a  single  thing  that  he  has 
written.  That  is  why  I  have  never  tried."  One 
feels  that  there  were  persons  who  were  in  the  same 
position  as  towards  Henry  James.  They  had 
heard  that  he  was  a  hard  nut  to  crack;  they  had 
seen  perhaps  —  it  was  always  a  great  temptation 
to  a  reviewer  to  extract  —  specimens  of  his  more 
elaborate  discursions,  complicated  arabesques  of 
sentences,  parenthesis  after  parenthesis  wandering 
from  comma  to  comma  like  barbed  wire  tangled 
around  its  supports.  And  they  thought  therefore 
that  he  was  an  obscure  eclectic  as  difficult  as  Jacob 
Behmen  or  Swedenborg  and  lacking  their  excuse  of 
religious  inspiration.  Certainly  he  was  sometimes 
196 


Henry  James's  Obscurity 

difficult.  But  it  was  a  unique  kind  of  obscurity. 
There  is  an  obscurity  produced  when  a  man,  eagerly 
tumbling  along  an  argument,  writes  down  only  a 
sort  of  fitful  shorthand,  a  language  which  leaves 
things  out  and  which  resembles  the  stray  pieces  of 
disconnected  paper  in  gutter  or  hedge  which  merely 
indicate  the  course  that  the  runner  has  taken.  There 
is  another  and  commoner  kind  of  obscurity  of  speech 
which  derives  from  mistiness  of  mind;  for  a  man 
cannot  write  clearly  down  what  he  does  not  clearly 
think.  And  there  is  a  kind  of  obscurity  which  is 
produced  by  mere  inaptitude  for  writing:  the  awk- 
wardness of  the  cow  handling  a  rifle.  James's  ob- 
scurity was  the  direct  product  of  his  passion  for 
clarity.  He  detested  the  slipshod  sentence  which, 
compact  as  it  may  look  as  a  piece  of  grammar,  is  a 
mere  pot-shot  as  a  piece  of  representation.  He 
wanted  to  make  no  statement  which  did  not  embody 
precisely  what  he  wanted  to  say ;  what,  that  is  to  say, 
he  saw  as  Truth.  He  would  have  taken,  for  ex- 
ample, tliat  last  sentence  of  mine  and,  endeavouring 
to  give  it  a  more  exact  shape,  have  made  of  it  some- 
thing like  the  following: 

*'  He  wanted,  when,  that  is,  he  experienced  any- 
thing so  definite  or,  shall  we  put  it,  so  positively 
energetic,  as  a  want,  to  make  no  statement,  none  at 
any  rate  which  might  be  taken  by  even  the  least  per- 
ceptive of  his  hearers  as  a  delivered,  and,  as  it  were, 
final  testimony  of  his  reaction  to  things  as  he  saw 

197 


Books  in  General 

them,  which  did  not  precisely  embody  what  he 
wanted  (when,  once  more,  he  coherently  desired 
anything,  as  we  have  it,  "  higher  "  than  the  elemen- 
tary physical)  to  say;  what,  that  is  to  say,  he  saw, 
at  the  moment  of  speech,  be  it  understood,  for  the 
eye  of  the  watcher  changes,  as  what,  in  the  absence 
of  a  happier  name,  it  has  pleased  us  to  ennoble  with 
the  majestic  name  of  Truth." 

I  don't  suggest  that  I  myself  have  added  anything 
to  my  own  sentence  by  this  addition  of  the  pomp 
and  circumstance  of  parenthesis  and  circumlocution. 
I  have  merely  turned  a  short  platitude  into  a  long 
one.  But  it  may  serve  to  show  the  method  by  which 
Henry  James  arrived  at  his  more  tortuous  pages. 
The  method  has  its  disadvantages.  The  man  who 
employs  it  is  sometimes  like  a  man  working  with  a 
pickaxe  in  a  cave.  The  more  he  digs  away  the 
larger  the  unattacked  expanse  which  invites  his 
strength;  or,  as  one  might  say,  the  bigger  the  hole 
he  is  in.  But  when  this  method  is  employed  by  a 
man  with  the  analytical  powers,  the  sensitiveness  to 
fine  shacies,  material  and  spiritual,  of  Henry  James, 
the  result  is  a  "product"  (the  kind  of  word  that 
James  would  always  have  put  in  actual  or  implied 
inverted  commas)  which  never  stales  and  from 
which  one  gets  more  and  more  enjoyment  each  time 
one  reads.  In  the  last  resort  novels  live  by  the 
richness  of  their  detail;  and  James's  detail  is  ex- 
quisite and  inexhaustible. 
198 


Henry  James's  Obscurity 

Few  modern  writers  have  exercised  so  strong 
an  influence  over  those  who  have  surrendered  them- 
selves to  him.  He  is,  I  should  say,  more  infectious 
than  any  writer  since  (what  a  strange  collocation!) 
Lord  Macaulay.  A  man  with  a  formed  style  can 
usually  read  and  enjoy  Carlyle,  Jeremy  Taylor,  de 
Quincey,  or  George  Meredith  without  showing  the 
least  tendency  (unless  deliberate)  to  imitate  them. 
But  when  one  has  (I  don't  speak  only  for  myself) 
been  reading  James  one  finds  for  a  time  that  one  is 
tempted  to  write  even  one's  private  letters  in  a  style 
whicIT  shows  plainly  that  one  has  set  him  as  a  seal 
upon  one's  arm.  Even  now,  when  I  am  merely 
thinking  about  him,  I  feel  the  pressure  of  that  stern 
artistic  conscience,  and  can  only  with  an  effort  resist 
the  demand  that  I  should  guard  myself  here,  qualify 
myself  here,  and  elucidate  myself  there.  He  was 
irresistible,  like  one  of  those  stammerers  or  persons 
with  other  attractive  or  unattractive  vocal  idiosyn- 
crasies whom  one  cannot  help  imitating  when  one  is 
with  them.  A  person  of  any  force  gets  through 
this  and  the  permanent  effect  of  a  subjugation  to 
James  was  always  good.  A  too  marked  echo  of  him 
would  be  painful:  but  his  example  was  salutary.  It 
may  be  possible  to  grumble  with  him  for  this  and 
that.  He  did  write  mainly  about  persons  with  in- 
comes (though  these  also  are  God's  creatures) ;  he 
did  occasionally  behave  (as  Mr.  Wells  very  wittily 
put  it)  like  a  hippopotamus  picking  up  a  pea;  and 
he  did  annoy  some  enthusiasts  by  refusing  to  place 

199 


Books  in  General 

his  pen  habitually  at  the  service  of  the  Great  Forces 
of  Our  Time  and  other  things  whose  capital  impor- 
tance is  of  custom  indicated  by  capital  letters.  But 
in  an  age  of  sloppy  writing  he  stood  for  accuracy 
of  craftmanship;  and  even  men  whose  subjects  are 
Invisible  Exports  of  the  Parthenogenesis  of  Plants 
might  learn  from  him  how  to  use  to  more  advantage 
their  intellects  and  their  pens. 


200 


The  ''Ring''  in  the 
Bookselling  Trade 

A  BIBLIOPHILE  writes  the  following  com- 
plaint: "At  the  recent  sale  of  Swinburne's 
library,  certain  lots,  chiefly  signed  presen- 
tation copies,  fetched  extravagantly  high  prices. 
But  the  outsider  is  generally  puzzled  at  the  extreme 
variation  in  the  prices,  a  variation  which  passing 
fashions  in  taste  do  not  explain.  There  is  an  expla- 
nation, as  one  would-be  purchaser  was  made  some- 
what rudely  aware.  He  wanted  a  book  by  a  modern 
poet,  a  poet  of  delicate  talent  and  little  recognition; 
and  he  asked  a  bookseller  to  bid  for  the  lot.  He 
was  willing  to  spend  between  ten  and  thirteen  shill- 
ings on  it.  The  agent  who  was  to  bid  arrived  late, 
and  another  bookseller  bought  the  lot  for  five  shill- 
ings. So  the  would-be  purchaser  asked  his  book- 
seller to  approach  the  man  who  had  bought  the  lot, 
and  find  out  if  he  would  sell  it.  The  book  was  cheap 
at  five  and  would  be  rather  dear  at  ten  shillings. 
When  approached,  the  purchaser  informed  his  col- 
league that  *  he  had  had  to  pay  a  good  deal  more 
for  the  lot  than  the  price  given  in  the  rooms,  and 
that  he  could  not  part  with  it  for  less  than  eighteen 
shillings.'  Such  are  the  blessings  of  the  *  ring '  at 
Sotheby's. 

20I 


Books  in  General 

"  The  ring  consists  of  some  of  the  largest  and 
best-known  members  of  the  bookselling  trade  —  all 
honest  men  —  and  their  plan  is  this:  they  never  bid 
against  each  other,  except  for  show;  lots  go  at  small 
prices,  thus  robbing  owners  and  executors  of  their 
right  profit;  and  subsequently  these  cheap  lots  are 
put  up  again  and  resold  among  the  members  of  the 
ring.  The  auctioneers  can,  of  course,  do  nothing  to 
stop  the  practice  —  and  it  is  as  legal  as  it  is  dishon- 
ourable. At  times  an  outsider  with  a  big  banking 
account  gives  the  ring  a  good  deal  of  trouble;  but 
it  has  survived  all  private  attacks,  and  is  likely  to  — 
though  a  private  buyer  with  a  confident  manner  and 
a  quick  power  of  decision  can  occasionally  get  a  great 
deal  of  amusement  by  running  lots  up,  and  so  forcing 
the  ring  to  pay  exorbitant  prices  for  things  they  do 
not  want." 

It  is  true.  There  exists  among  the  second-hand 
booksellers  precisely  such  a  ring  as  gave  rise  to 
so  much  discussion  a  few  years  ago  when  the  scandal 
of  the  art-dealers'  "  knock-out "  was  widely  dis- 
cussed. For  some  time  I  myself  have  been  trying 
to  get  information  about  it.  But  it  is  not  easy. 
You  can  find  out  from  booksellers  who  are  not  in 
the  ring  ffew  of  these  lone  wolves  are  important) 
who  the  booksellers  are  who  are  in  the  ring,  but 
that  is  about  all.  But  the  method  is  simple.  The 
attendance  at  book  sales  is  not  large.  Private  col- 
lectors are  lazy  people;  it  is  not  now  fashionable  — 
202 


The  "Ring"  in  the  Bookselling  Trade 

as  it  was  in  the  Duke  of  Roxburghe's  day  —  for  the 
Old  Nobility  to  crowd  the  salerooms,  bidding  des- 
perately amid  groans  of  anguish  and  cheers  of  tri- 
umph. The  result  is  that  very  often  one  will  attend 
a  sale  and  be  the  only  private  person  there,  and  it  is 
a  matter  of  chance  (especially  when  the  sale  is  a 
comparatively  small  one)  whether  any  one  at  all 
is  there  except  the  members  of  the  ring.  The  ring, 
pro  forma,  will  run  a  book  up  to  about  a  third  of 
its  value  and  leave  it  at  that.  At  the  close  of  the 
proceedings  its  members  will  adjourn  somewhere  — 
I  don't  know  where,  but  let  us  say  a  back  room  in 
the  Charing  Cross  Road  —  and  hold  a  "  knock-out  " 
auction  of  the  books  they  have  bought.  The  differ- 
ence between  the  sums  paid  here  and  the  sums  paid 
at  Sotheby's  or  Hodgson's  will  be  pooled  and  di- 
vided, so  as  to  equalize  the  spoil;  and  the  owners  of 
the  libraries  sold  will  have  got  only,  perhaps,  a  half 
of  what  they  really  ought  to  have  got  considering  the 
prices  that  the  ultimate  purchasers  are  willing  to 
pay. 

But  I  don't  see  what  is  to  be  done  about  it. 
As  my  correspondent  remarks,  the  auctioneers  can't 
stop  it.  They  also  must  suffer  as  their  work  is  done 
on  a  commission  basis.  It  must  not  be  assumed 
that  all  the  booksellers  like  the  system,  but  the 
minority  cannot  help  themselves.  I  remember  that 
one  very  well  known  bookseller,  now  dead,  tried  for 
several  years  to  keep  out  of  it;  but  in  the  end,  by 

203 


Books  in  General 

co-ordinated  bidding  against  him,  he  was  forced  in. 
There  the  thing  is;  the  dealers  find  it  profitable;  it 
is  not  easy  to  keep  out  of  it  unless  you  are  a  prince 
of  the  trade,  with  rich  customers  and  great  resources, 
or  a  person  with  special  knowledge  who  is  after  a 
special  kind  of  book  and  will  be  let  alone;  and 
there  is  no  short  cut  to  reform.  How  can  Parlia- 
ment interfere?  If  one  dealer  who  buys  a  book 
can  sell  it  to  another  after  the  sale,  how  can  six 
or  a  dozen  dealers  be  prevented  from  exchanging 
their  purchases  similarly.  It  would  be  all  very  well 
to  make  the  "  knock-out "  illegal,  but  how  many 
does  it  take  to  make  a  ring  and  how  many  detectives 
could  be  spared?  The  only  conceivable  remedy  is 
for  persons  who  habitually  buy  old  books  to  make  a 
point  (when  the  war  is  over  and  they  are  released 
from  their  present  occupations)  of  turning  up  at  the 
salerooms  and  bidding  against  the  pros.  Even  at 
that  the  remedy  would  only  be  efficacious  as  long  as 
it  was  actively  applied.  It  might  be  worth  a  guinea 
a  box,  but  you  would  have  to  take  a  box  every  day; 
there  would  be  no  permanent  cure.  Directly  the 
strangers  slacked  off  again  the  ring  and  the  "  knock- 
out "  would  revive,  and  my  unfortunate  friend  (for 
I  presume  that  the  disconsolate  buyer  he  refers  to 
is  himself)  would  have  once  more  to  pay  for  his 
books  much  more  than  the  price  recorded  at  the 
rooms.  "  There  is  no  cure  for  this  disease,"  as 
Mr.  Belloc's  poem  puts  it,  unless  auction-frequenting 
again  becomes  a  popular  form  of  amusement. 
204 


The  ''Ring"  in  the  Bookselling  Trade 

But,  if  I  may  digress,  I  must  say  that,  for  per- 
sons of  a  bookish  turn  of  mind,  there  is  nothing 
more  amusing  than  an  occasional  visit  to  Welling- 
ton Street  or  Chancery  Lane.  I  shouldn't  care  to 
do  it  every  day;  the  combined  mustiness  of  books 
and  booksellers  is  a  bit  overpowering.  But  is  is  ex- 
citing to  bid  occasionally,  and  the  books  that  come 
into  the  London  auction-rooms  are  of  such  quality 
that  sometimes  you  might  almost  as  well  go  to 
Sotheby's  as  to  the  Exhibition  Rooms  (now  shut  up 
so  as  to  pay  for  two  minutes  of  the  war)  of  the 
British  Museum.  The  bindings  that  great  collectors 
put  on  their  books  are  in  themselves  wonderful. 
And  the  booksellers,  rich  and  poor,  glossy  and  seedy, 
as  they  nod  to  the  rostrum  and  paw  the  goods,  are  a 
sight  to  which  only  Balzac  could  do  justice.  They 
all  wear  looks  of  settled  gloom  as  though  they  were 
on  the  verge  of  bankruptcy;  they  all  (if  one  speaks 
to  them)  swear  that  "  it  is  impossible  to  get  any- 
thing to-day  as  everything  is  going  so  dear";  and 
they  all  have  a  sovereign  indifference  to  everything 
but  the  commercial  value  of  the  books  they  deal  in. 
I  say  all:  there  are  exceptions;  but  the  crowd  as  a 
whole  is  utterly  depressed  and  completely  free  from 
the  remotest  concern  with  literature.  But  possibly 
when  they  get  in  that  back  room  somewhere  and 
assess  the  margin  between  what  executors  have  got 
for  books  and  what  they  ought  to  have  got  for 
them,  their  morose  countenances  may  brighten.  For 
all  I  know,  every  "  knock-out  "  auction  may  end  with 

205 


Books  in  General 

the  circulation  of  the  punch-bowl,  jolly  songs,  and 
toasts  to  the  damnation  of  all  the  idiots  who  waste 
their  money  on  rotten  old  books  unfit  to  read  and 
thereby  keep  in  affluence  a  set  of  honest  men  who 
read  the  Daily  Mail  in  the  morning  and  never  a 
line  for  the  rest  of  the  day. 


206 


Music-Hail  Songs 


MR.  WILLIAM  ARCHER  contributes  to 
the  Fortnightly  an  attack  on  the  music- 
hall.  He  says  that  it  is  the  home  of  vul- 
garity and  inanity;  that  the  audiences,  as  a  rule, 
would  enjoy  much  better  stuff  than  they  are  given; 
and  that  "  the  music-hall  seems  to  have  killed  a  gen- 
uine vein  of  lyric  faculty  in  the  English  people." 
With  all  that  I  don't  think  that  any  one  but  a  poseur 
could  disagree.  Mr.  Archer  makes  an  extraordi- 
nary slip  when  he  puts  forward  Sally  in  our  Alley  as 
a  folk-product  of  which  neither  the  composer  nor 
the  author  is  known  to  fame :  both  words  and  music 
being  by  Henry  Carey,  who  was  scarcely  an  obscure 
person  in  his  day  and  is  not  entirely  forgotten  now. 
He  concludes,  too,  with  a  somewhat  vague  sugges- 
tion of  a  remedy  which  has  no  bearing  whatever 
upon  the  improvement  of  music-hall  songs,  and  which 
one  suspects  to  spring  from  his  perennial  desire  to 
induce  the  public  to  go  and  see  Ibsen.  But  his  case 
as  a  whole  is  irrefutable.  The  nation's  songs  since 
the  industrial  revolution  have  been  immeasurably 
worse  than  at  any  other  time  in  its  history.  They 
are  almost  all  commercial  products  manufactured  by 
half-wits. 

207 


Books  in  General 

Mr.  Archer's  case  being  so  sound,  it  is  all  the 
more  a  pity  that  he  overdoes  it.  It  is  true  that 
almost  all  these  songs  are  vile  rubbish,  and  that 
the  songs  of  the  Villikins  and  his  Dinah  and  Cham- 
pagne Charlie  periods  were  even  more  fatuous  than 
those  of  the  present  day.  But  it  is  exaggeration 
to  say  that 

"  what  is  certain  is  that  the  whole  music-hall  move- 
ment has  produced  not  one  —  literally  not  one  — 
piece  of  verse  that  can  rank  as  poetry  of  the  humblest 
type,  or  even  as  a  really  clever  bit  of  comic  rhym- 
ing, 

for  such  songs  turn  up  fairly  frequently.  Possibly 
Mr.  Archer's  horror  of  the  "  red-nosed  comedian  " 
prevents  him  from  ever  listening  to  his  words:  cer- 
tainly one  gets  from  Mr.  Archer's  article  the  im- 
pression that  the  critic  is  only  acquainted  with  a 
few  of  the  most  famous  of  music-halls  songs.  But 
although  I  heartily  support  his  general  case  and 
would  willingly  consent  to  the  execution  of  all  music- 
hall  managers  and  versifiers  and  most  music-hall 
artists,  I  must  protest  that  "  really  clever  bits  of 
comic  rhyming  "  do  turn  up  occasionally. 

I  wish  I  had  a  better  verbal  memory.  But  I 
can  at  least  refer  Mr.  Archer  to  a  few  songs  of 
which,  if  he  cares  to  spend  a  month  in  the  Museum 
with  old  volumes  of  Francis,  Day  and  Hunter's 
song-books  and  other  collections,  he  can  find  the  full 
208 


Music-Hall  Songs 

words.  For  instance,  there  is  Mr.  Harry  Lauder's 
It's  Nice  to  get  up  in  the  Morning.  As  I  remember 
them  (and  here  and  elsewhere  I  don't  guarantee  that 
my  quotations  are  literally  accurate)  the  words  of 
the  chorus  are: 

Oh,  it's  nice  to  get  up  in  the  morning  when  the  sun 
begins  to  shine, 

At  four  or  five  or  six  o'clock  in  the  good  old  summer 
time; 

^But  when  the  snow  is  falling,  and  it's  murky  over- 
head. 

It's  nice  to  get  up  in  the  morning  —  hut  it's  nicer 
to  stay  in  bed. 

Of  course  the  tune  helped  it.  But  it  is  quite  well 
turned  and  it  springs  clean  out  of  popular  experience. 
It  is  folk-poetry  even  if  the  folk  didn't  write  it.  It 
is  not  the  folk-poetry  of  the  seventeenth  century,  but 
it  is  distinctly  the  folk-poetry  of  modern  commercial 
and  urban  England.  We  sat  upon  the  Baby  on  the 
Shore  I'm  not  sure  about;  it  didn't,  I  suspect,  have 
a  music-hall  origin,  though  I  do  not  know.  But 
A  Little  Bit  of  the  Top  was  quite  comic  in  places; 
so  were  The  Four  Horse  Charabanc,  Right  in  the 
Middle  of  the  Road,  Whitewash,  and  'E  dunno 
where  'e  are.  I  wish  I  could  recall  the  words  of  the 
song  which  had  a  chorus  beginning: 

More  work  for  the  undertaker. 

Another  little  job  for  the  tombstone-maker; 

209 


Books  in  General 

but  even  that  high-spirited  couplet  shows  their 
quality.  These  mock-tragic  songs  are  often  quite 
good.  The  best  known  was  His  Day's  Work  was 
done,  which  was  undeniably  a  comic  conception  well 
carried  out.  Did  Mr.  Archer  ever  hear  //  it  wasn't 
for  the  Houses  in  Between?  The  one  fragment  that 
sticks  in  my  mind  both  dates  it  and  shows  that  it  was 
a  "  clever  bit  of  comic  rhyming  " : 

//  the  weather  had  been  finer 

You'd  have  seen  the  war  in  China  — 

//  it  wasn't  for  the  Houses  in  Between. 

And  what  about  Waiting  at  the  Church?  — 

There  was  I  waiting  at  the  church, 

Waiting  at  the  church. 

When  I  found  he'd  left  me  in  the  lurch, 

Lor',  how  it  did  upset  me! 

Then  he  sent  me  round  a  little  note, 

Just  a  little  note. 

This  is  what  he  wrote: 

Can't  get  away  to  marry  you  to-day  — 

My  wife  won't  let  me." 

That  seems  to  me  a  well-calculated  chorus,  and 
the  clinch  of  the  last  two  lines  couldn't  be  beaten. 
But  perhaps  the  austere  Mr.  Archer  would  think 
it  debasing  on  the  grounds  that  it  led  the  audience 
to  think  lightly  of  bigamy. 

2IO 


Music-Hail  Songs 

Bigamy  is  one  of  the  chief  comic-song  subjects. 
Vermin  in  one's  bed,  drunkenness,  and  the  food 
in  boarding-houses  are  the  others.  The  "  booze  " 
songs  are  not,  as  a  rule,  as  good  as  they  should  be. 
The  only  one  I  remember  that  was  at  all  neat  ran 
something  like: 

First  she  had  some  marmalade, 

And  then  she  had  some  jam, 
Then  some  dozen  of  oysters 

And  then  a  plate  of  ham, 
A  lobster  and  a  crab  or  two 

And  a  pint  of  bottled  beer, 
A  little  gin  hot  to  settle  the  lot 

—  And  that's  what  made  her  queer. 

I  certainly  don't  suggest  that  any  of  the  songs 
I  have  quoted  —  and  I'm  certain  that  consultation 
with  a  few  expert  friends,  now  in  Flanders,  would 
bring  better  ones  to  light  —  are  masterpieces.  But 
I  do  think  they  are  quite  comic  verse,  and  that  if 
all  music-hall  songs  were  as  well  turned  there  would 
not  be  much  ground  for  complaint.  One  does,  that 
is,  laugh  occasionally  at  a  music-hall,  in  spite  of  Mr. 
Archer.  But,  unhappily,  of  ninety-nine  songs  out 
of  a  hundred  the  words  are  too  abysmal  for  any- 
thing, and  the  serious  ones  are  almost  invariably  im- 
becile. I  wonder,  by  the  way,  whether  the  music- 
hall  authorities  ever  try  to  induce  competent  comic 
rhymers,  known  in  other  spheres,  to  turn  out  songs 

211 


Books  in  General 

for  them?  Probably  not;  they  think  the  words 
don't  matter.  That  they  are  mistaken  (though  the 
tunes  count  for  most)  is  shown  by  the  way  that  a 
song  with  good  words  succeeds  with  the  audience. 
Even  one  ingenious  line  will  often  bring  the  house 
down.  I  remember  the  old  song  /  can't  change  it. 
There  was  a  stanza  about  a  bride  who  appalled 
her  bridegroom  by  taking  herself  to  pieces,  remov- 
ing a  wig,  a  glass  eye,  a  wooden  arm,  two  wooden 
legs,  etc.  In  the  chorus  the  narrator  suddenly  de- 
scribed her  as  "  'Arf  a  woman  and  'arf  a  tree,"  and 
this  admirable  if  unrefined  trope  was  the  most  suc- 
cessful thing  of  the  year.  But  as  I  say,  I  largely 
agree  with  Mr.  Archer.  If  only  they  would  let  me 
smoke  in  theatres  I  would  never  go  near  a  music- 
hall  again  until  the  programmes  were  improved,  and 
I  imagine  many  other  people  are  in  the  same  boat. 


212 


More  Music-Hail  Songs 

How  little  do  we  know  the  consequences  of 
our  acts.  "  I  say  there  is  not  a  red  Indian, 
hunting  by  Lake  Winnipic,  can  quarrel 
with  his  squaw,  but  the  whole  world  must  smart  for 
it:  will  not  the  price  of  beaver  rise?  It  is  a  mathe- 
matical fact  that  the  casting  of  this  pebble  from  my 
hand  alters  the  centre  of  gravity  of  the  Universe." 
That  was  Carlyle's  way  of  putting  it.  Somebody 
wrote  a  book  of  theatrical  reminiscences:  the  book 
set  Mr.  William  Archer  pondering  on  the  fatuity  of 
music-halls;  Mr.  Archer's  article  made  me  try  to 
remember  comic  fragments  of  music-hall  songs;  and 
my  observations  would  appear,  judging  from  the 
quantities  of  correspondence  they  have  produced,  to 
have  tempted  whole  families  to  spend  their  evenings 
trying  to  recall  the  popular  choruses  of  their  youth. 

Numbers  of  them  seem  to  have  better  memories 
than  mine.  Whole  verses  of  More  Work  for  the 
Undertaker  (I  think  it  was  Mr.  Dunville's  song) 
reach  me.  The  scheme  may  be  illustrated  by  one 
stanza: 

Sammy  Snoozer  laboured  on  the  railway; 
His  work  he  was  very  clever  at! 

213 


Books  in  General 

Sammy  one  day  was  a-polishing  the  metals 
With  a  lump  of  mouldy  fat. 
Up  come  a  runaway  engine, 
Sammy  stood  upon  the  track; 
He  held  out  his  arms,  for  he  firmly  believed 
He  could  push  that  locomotive  back. 
(The  drum:  Boom!  !) 

(Chorus) 

More  work  for  the  undertaker. 

Another  little  job  for  the  tombstone-maker; 

At  the  local  cemetery  they've 

Been  very  very  busy  with  a  brand-new  grave. 

For  Snoozer's 

Snuffed  it! 

I  am  afraid  that  I  should  have  to  grant  Mr. 
Archer  the  verse :  the  second  line,  especially,  cannot 
be  called  a  model  of  good  craftsmanship.  But  the 
chorus  is  very  neat.  It  was  varied  with  each  verse. 
Another  correspondent's  specimen  finishes  with 
"  For  Frederick's  fragments." 

I  must  bow  to  the  correspondent  who  suggests 
that  the  success  of  the  song  about  the  bride  with 
artificial  limbs  was  at  least  as  much  due  to  lines 
he  quotes  as  it  was  to  "  'Arf  a  woman  and  'arf  a 
tree."     His  lines  are: 

/  can't  change  her! 
'No  matter  how  I  try, 
214 


More  Music-Hall  Songs 

But  I'll  chop  her  up  for  firewood 
In  the  sweet  by-and-by. 

An  equally  Impolite  chorus  is  that  of  Herbert 
Campbell's  'Blige  a  Lady  which  another  corre- 
spondent sends.  The  conductor,  on  a  rainy  day, 
asked  the  inside  males  to  give  up  a  seat  to  a  lady 
and  go  outside,  and  the  reply  was  on  the  lines  of 

Said  I,  "  Old  chap,  she  may  have  my  lap, 
But  I  don't  get  wet  for  her." 

That  is  very  typical  music-hall;  and  it  will  be  ob- 
served that  it  gets  its  effect  by  sticking  close,  as 
Wordsworth  advised,  to  the  natural  phraseology 
and  sequence  of  everyday  speech. 

Mr.  Albert  Chevalier,  I  admit,  I  did  not  mention. 
He  has  not  been  primarily  a  music-hall  artist,  and 
Mr.  Archer  himself  made  an  exception  of  his  songs. 
Some  of  Mr.  Gus  Elen's  certainly  might  be  quoted: 
e.  g.  'E  dunno  where  'e  are  and  What's  the  Use  of 
looking  out  for  Work?  I  am  afraid  that  I  am  not 
sufficiently  well  informed  to  answer  questions  as  to 
the  sources  of  supply  of  modern  music-hall  songs. 
The  only  thing  I  have  observed  is  that  large  num- 
bers of  the  worst  ones  are  composed  by  persons 
whose  names  suggest  that  the  use  of  the  English 
language  is  with  them  rather  an  acquired  than  an 
inherited  characteristic.     How  far  the  practice  pre- 

215 


Books  in  General 

vails  of  a  particular  star  employing  a  tame  author  to 
write  the  words  of  all  his  songs  for  him  I  do  not 
know.  I  have  never  consciously  met  a  writer  of 
music-hall  songs,  though  I  did  know  one  man  who 
made  two  attempts  to  produce  what  he  thought  the 
right  sort  of  commodity.  He  sent  them  to  an  en- 
trepreneur, but  all  his  wit  was  wasted.  The  chorus 
of  one  song  mentioned  a  well-known  and  much-ad- 
vertised comestible:  this  wouldn't  do,  as  all  the 
vendors  of  similar  articles  would  be  jealous  and,  pos- 
sibly, refuse  to  advertise  any  more  on  the  pro- 
gramme. In  the  other  song  the  author  had  had 
the  misfortune  to  hit  upon  an  idea  which  had  been 
used  before.     His  refrain  was: 

And  when  the  pie  was  opened 
The  birds  began  to  sing. 

But  there  was  an  old  song  with  the  same  tail  to  it. 
It  was  a  song  about  a  pigeon-pie  which  was  no  better 
than  it  should  be.  This  reminds  me  that  in  tabu- 
lating favourite  music-hall  subjects  one  should  cer- 
tainly have  mentioned  bad  smells.  Throughout  his- 
tory any  reference  to  unpleasant  smells  has  moved 
the  Englishman  to  roars  of  laughter.  Perhaps  it 
is  because  we  so  thoroughly  dislike  them.  I  don't 
think  that  these  odours  take  all  nations  in  quite  the 
same  way:  but  travellers  on  the  Continent  are  some- 
times tempted  to  think  that  most  nations  do  not 
notice  them  so  much  as  we  do. 
216 


More  Music-Hail  Songs 

The  music-hall  versifier,  usually  feeble  when 
funny,  is  certainly  at  his  worst  when  serious.  Such 
of  the  war-songs  as  I  have  heard  are  dreadful. 
Perhaps  those  I  have  not  heard  are  better.  Early 
in  the  war  I  was  looking  into  a  music-shop  window 
in  Upper  Shaftesbury  Avenue  and  saw  two  typical 
titles.  One  was  Only  a  Bit  of  Khaki  that  Daddy 
wore  at  Mons,  and  the  other  was  The  Little  Irish 
Red  Cross  Nurse.  I  did  not  dare  to  buy  them,  but 
I  could  not  help  admiring  the  ingenuity  of  the  author 
of  the  second  who  had  managed  to  work  the  peren- 
nial Irish  Girl  theme  so  neatly  into  the  new  subject. 
All  music-hall  poets  seem  to  be  obsessed  by  Irish 
girls.  They  will  even  work  them  into  translations 
of  foreign  songs  which  do  not  mention  them.  Five 
or  six  years  ago  a  German  music-hall  song  which  had 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  Irish  girls  was  im- 
ported and  became  very  popular  here.  The  ideas 
of  the  original  were  largely  preserved,  but  an  Irish 
girl  had  to  be  stuck  in.  But  quo,  Musa,  tendis?  If 
I  go  on  like  this  I  shall  end  by  agreeing  with  Mr. 
Archer. 


217 


Utopias 


I  SAW  recently  a  very  entertaining  article  by  Mr. 
Walter  Lippman  in  the  New  Republic  on  the 
subject  of  Utopias.  Mr.  Lippman  raised  the 
question  of  why  it  was  Utopias  had  gone  out  of 
fashion.  Since  Mr.  Wells  wrote  his  Modern 
Utopia  no  one  has  had  a  shot. 

It  is,  of  course,  not  the  longest  period  in  human 
history  which  has  gone  without  a  new  Utopia.  As 
far  as  I  know,  nothing  of  the  sort  was  constructed 
between  the  time  of  Plato  and  that  of  Sir  Thomas 
More.  Reasons  might,  no  doubt,  be  discovered  for 
this  long  lapse.  The  Romans  were  too  realistic  to 
bother  about  such  things,  and  in  the  Middle  Ages 
the  only  people  who  could  write  were  priests,  and 
they  probably  did  not  dare  outline  any  other  perfect 
society  than  that  of  the  New  Jerusalem.  In  fact, 
Utopias  of  any  merit  have  until  recently  always  been 
produced  at  long  intervals:  with  the  exception  of 
Bacon's  New  Atlantis  and  Campanella's  City  of  the 
Sun,  which  were,  I  think,  published  in  the  same  year. 
The  nineteenth  century  must  have  produced  more 
imaginary  states  of  this  kind  than  all  its  predecessors 
put  together.  And  if  we  stop  constructing  Utopias, 
this  will  happen  not  because  we  have  ceased  to 
218 


Utopias 

hanker  after  them,  but  because  the  complexities  of 
civilization  have  become  too  unmanageable  to  handle. 
When  the  structures  of  society  and  industry  were 
comparatively  simple,  a  man  could  invent  an  ideal 
state  which  would  not  look  too  far  removed  from 
the  states  he  knew.  We  can  still  go  on  dreaming 
of  little  paradises,  such  as  that  in  Morris's  News 
from  Nowhere;  but  what  it  is  difficult  to  do  is  to 
describe  fully  an  imaginary  community  which  is 
world-wide,  or,  at  any  rate,  in  contact  with  the  whole 
world,  which  has  to  face  the  problems  of  race,  and 
which  has  to  take  over  from  existing  civilization  our 
highly  developed  methods  of  manufacture  and  dis- 
tribution of  labour.  Mr.  Wells  did  try  to  depict  a 
state  that  might  grow  out  of  the  existing  order; 
but  his  picture  is  notably  less  complete  than  those 
of  older  writers.  He  could  only  hope  to  produce 
his  effect  by  giving  us  a  series  of  cinema  glimpses 
of  various  aspects  of  life.  Personally,  I  doubt 
whether  any  one  else  will  even  attempt  the  job. 

One  could  wish  that  somebody  would  make  a 
thorough  study  of  the  principal  Utopias  that  the 
mind  of  man  has  conceived.  Such  a  study  would 
offer  many  interesting  paths  to  research.  We  might 
find  out,  for  example,  to  how  great  an  extent  the 
Utopians  of  various  ages  and  nations  have  been 
influenced  (as  Plato  was  conspicuously  influenced) 
by  the  transient  conditions  of  their  own  time.  For 
instance,  the  great  variety  of  opinion  which  Utopians 

219 


Books  in  General 

have  held  with  regard  to  the  precious  metals  would 
be  worth  examination.  Some  have  held  them  in 
great  respect;  others  have  vindictively  suggested  that 
they  should  be  put  to  the  basest  possible  uses. 
Again,  how  far  has  each  writer  of  this  kind  been 
influenced  by  his  predecessor?  It  can  scarcely  be 
supposed,  for  instance,  that  Campanella  did  not  lift 
his  communistic  ideas  bodily  from  Plato,  or  that  Mr. 
Wells's  class  of  Samurai  owed  nothing  to  the  same 
inspiration.  Sometimes  one  sees  a  quite  minor  and 
obviously  personal  idea  lifted  clean  or  adapted  with 
slight  alterations  which  make  it  all  the  more  curious. 
For  example,  in  More's  Utopia  brides  and  bride- 
grooms before  marriage  always  inspected  each  other 
in  a  state  of  nature.  It  is  to  be  presumed  that  More 
had  some  peculiar  crank  on  this  subject;  for  he  men- 
tions the  possibility  of  concealing  deformities  as 
though  it  were  a  common  practice  that  should  cer- 
tainly be  guarded  against  by  law.  When  we  get  to 
Bacon  we  find  this  odd  idea  copied,  with  the  differ- 
ence that  it  is  now  the  friends  of  the  respective 
parties  that  make  the  examination. 

The  endless  queer  details  in  Utopias  would  in 
themselves  make  such  a  study  amusing.  Plato's  pas- 
sion to  secure  that  no  mother  should  know  her  own 
child;  the  preposterously  exact  account  of  the 
amount  of  money  subscribed  towards  the  foundation 
of  the  new  state  in  Theodor  Hertzka's  Freeland; 
the  wonderful  battle  between  the  fleets  of,  if  I  re- 
220 


Utopias 

member  rightly,  Abyssinia  and  Europe  in  the  same 
book;  the  trains  going  two  hundred  miles  an  hour, 
so  smoothly  that  people  played  billiards  on  them,  in 
Mr.  Wells's  New  World.  I  remember  another 
Utopia,  an  obscure  eighteenth-century  one,  in  which 
persons  who  had  committed  murders  were  given  the 
choice  of  being  executed  in  honour  or  surviving  in 
disgrace.  If  they  chose  death  they  were  led  to  the 
scaffold  amid  universal  applause,  their  names  were 
inscribed  upon  rolls  of  honour,  and  their  relatives 
were  given  fat  jobs.  Then,  again,  one  could  have 
a  quite  interesting  chapter  on  the  various  literary 
devices  by  which  authors  have  precipitated  readers 
into  their  supposititious  communities.  More's  in- 
troduction —  with  the  bronzed  and  bearded  seaman 
who  went  out  with  the  companions  of  Columbus  and 
was  stranded  on  an  unknown  island  —  is  as  charm- 
ing as  any.  Later  dodges  have  been  more  far- 
fetched. Mr.  Wells's  transferment  to  the  twin- 
world  of  this  one  is  very  subtle;  Edward  Bellamy 
made  his  hero  wake  up  after  centuries  in  a  room 
where  he  asked  for  Edith  (his  old  fiancee)  and  was 
conveniently  answered  by  another  lady  of  the  same 
name.  I  say  nothing  of  the  books  which  lie  on  the 
outskirts  of  Utopian  literature,  such  as  various  gro- 
tesque Utopias  and  anti-Utopias  and  books  like  Lord 
Lytton's  The  Coming  Race  and  W.  H.  Hudson's 
The  Crystal  Age,  which  last  is,  I  believe,  the  only 
book  on  record  which  purports  to  have  been  written 
by  a  man  who  dies  in  the  last  chapter  and  describes 

221 


Books  in  General 

his  own  demise.  And  the  practical  attempts  to  set 
up  working  ideal  communities  —  such  as  the  Oneida 
community  which  developed  into  a  prosperous 
"  Mfg.  Coy." —  are  another  pleasant  by-way. 

I  think  that  with  all  the  peculiarities  of  time  and 
place,  all  the  eccentricities  of  personal  taste,  and  all 
the  genuine  varieties  of  ideals  allowed  for,  a  student 
of  Comparative  Utopianism  would  probably  find 
that  there  was  a  good  deal  in  the  way  of  method  and 
a  very  great  deal  in  the  way  of  aim  that  all  Utopians 
have  in  common.  Mr.  Yeats  once  suggested  that 
if  we  put  together  whatever  the  great  poets  have 
affirmed  in  their  finest  moments  we  should  come  as 
near  as  possible  to  an  authoritative  religion.  In  the 
same  way,  one  feels  that  if  one  tabulated  the  ideals 
of  the  most  successful  writers  of  Utopias  we  should 
be  able  to  extract,  if  not  a  residuum  of  agreed 
schemes,  at  least  a  common  element  of  aspiration 
which  we  might  fairly  say  represented  the  permanent 
ideals  of  the  human  race  respecting  the  ordering  of 
our  life  on  earth.  Really  intelligent  and  altruistic 
men  —  and  nobody  without  some  intelligence  and 
some  altruism  would  bother  to  conceive  a  Utopia  — 
have  a  tendency  to  dream  the  same  sort  of  dreams. 
To  take  it  on  its  negative  side,  no  deviser  of  an  ideal 
state,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  has  proposed  immense 
inequalities  in  the  distribution  of  wealth,  crowded 
and  insanitary  houses,  child  labour,  wars  of  aggres- 
sion, or  sweating.     There  are  large  numbers  of  in- 

222 


Utopias 

cfustrious  and  accurate  people  in  this  country  and 
America  who  are  hunting  for  subjects  about  which 
they  can  write  volumes  of  "  research."  I  wish  one 
of  them  would  write  the  book  I  suggest. 


223 


Charles  II  in  English  Verse 

I  WAS  talking  to  a  man  the  other  day  about 
books  that  ought  to  have  been  written  and 
have  not  been,  when  it  occurred  to  me  that 
somebody  might  publish  a  very  amusing  selection  of 
panegyrics  written  on  undeserving  persons :  say,  the 
less  immaculate  of  the  English  kings.  I  once 
thought  of  writing  a  life  of  Charles  II,  each  chapter 
of  which  should  be  headed  by  an  extract  from  some 
contemporary  poem  about  him.  The  contrast  be- 
tween the  character  and  private  and  public  actions 
of  this  monarch  and  the  descriptions  of  him  by  lit- 
erary eulogists  would  have  been  illuminating. 
Gross  flattery  was  the  habit  of  the  time.  James  the 
First  was  given,  very  unfairly  as  I  think,  the  title  of 
the  British  Solomon;  and  the  Royal  Martyr,  who 
after  all  had  some  virtues  very  highly  developed, 
was  written  of  in  terms  which  would  have  been  ex- 
treme IT  applied  to  St.  Francis  of  Assisi.  But  no 
one,  not  even  his  father,  received  such  wholehearted 
praises  as  Charles  II. 

His  career  as  a  recipient  of  them  began  early. 
When  he  was  a  child  Francis  Quarles's  Divine 
Fancies  were  dedicated  to  him.  The  Dedication 
was  headed:  "To  the  Royal  Bud  of  Majesty  and 
224 


Charles  II  in  English  Verse 

Centre  of  our  Hopes  and  Happiness,  Charles,"  and 
began:  "Illustrious  Infant,  Give  me  leave  to  ac- 
knowledge myself  thy  servant,  ere  thou  knowest  thy- 
self my  Prince."  The  hope  is  held  out  that  the 
illustrious  infant  will  become  "  a  most  incomparable 
Prince,  the  firm  pillar  of  our  happiness  and  the 
future  object  of  the  world's  wonder."  Addressing 
then  the  boy's  governess.  Lady  Dorset,  Quarles  be- 
comes even  more  rhapsodical : 

"  Most  excellent  Lady, 

"  You  are  the  Star  which  stands  over  the  Place 
where  the  Babe  lies.  By  whose  directions'  light, 
I  come  from  the  East  to  present  my  Myrrh  and 
Frankincense  to  the  young  child.  Let  not  our  Royal 
Joseph  nor  his  princely  Mary  be  afraid;  there  are 
no  Herods  here.  We  have  all  seen  his  Star  in  the 
East,  and  have  rejoyced:  our  loyall  hearts  are  full; 
for  our  eyes  have  seen  him,  in  whom  our  Posterity 
shall  be  blessed. 

One  could  scarcely  hope  that  Quarles's  successors 
would  quite  live  up  to  that. 

Dryden's  poem  on  Charles's  return  to  England 
is  pitched  a  little  lower.  It  certainly  contains  lines 
like 

The  winds  that  never  moderation  knew, 
Afraid  to  blow  too  much,  too  faintly  blew; 

225 


Books  in  General 

Or  out  of  breath  with  joy  would  not  enlarge 
Their  straightened  lungs  .  .  . 

but  that  is  a  mere  excess  of  avowed  fancy.  When 
he  wrote  his  Threnodia  Augustalis  on  Charles's 
death,  Dryden  decidedly  went  one  better.  Perhaps 
it  was  that  he  had  had  twenty-five  years  of  Charles's 
reign  in  which  to  appreciate  fully  the  King's  reverend 
qualities.     He  calls  him 

That  all-forgiving  King 
The  type  of  Him  above, 

That  unexhausted  spring 
Of  clemency  and  love. 


He  apostrophizes  the  Muse  of  History: 


} 


Be  true,  O  Clio,  to  thy  hero's  name! 

But  draw  htm  strictly  so 

That  all  who  view  the  piece  may  know; 
He  needs  no  trappings  of  fictitious  fame, 
The  load's  too  weighty. 

The  anguished  poet  almost  blasphemes  against 
heaven  for  taking  away  so  peerless  a  sovereign; 
until  he  remembers  that  *'  saints  and  angels " 
had  been  done  out  of  Charles's  company  for  so 
long  that  their  turn  might  fairly  be  considered  to 
have  come.  And  there  is  the  further  consolation 
that  a  James  has  succeeded  a  Charles: 
226 


Charles  II  in  English  Verse 

Our  Atlas  fell  indeed,  but  Hercules  was  near; 

or,  as  the  Earl  of  Halifax  put  it, 

James  is  our  Charles  in  all  things  else  hut  name. 

Which  Charles  himself  at  least  knew  to  be  untrue. 

The  Halifax  extract  comes  out  of  another  funeral 
poem  On  the  Death  of  His  Most  Sacred  Majesty. 
"  Farewell,"  he  cries, 

great  Charles,  monarch  of  blest  renown. 
The  best  good  man  that  ever  fill'd  a  throne. 

He  sketches  Charles's  career.  He  compares  his 
exile  to  the  banishment  of  David  (an  open  crib 
from  Astra  Redux)  and  says  of  England  that, 
when  he  came  back, 

to  his  arms  she  fled 
And  rested  on  his  shoulders  her  fair  bending  head. 

He  "  Us  from  our  foes  and  from  ourselves  did 
save."  Only  the  almost  inevitable  comparison  to 
the  Almighty  can  do  him  justice : 

In  Charles  so  good  a  man  and  King  we  see 
A  double  image  of  the  deity. 
Oh?  had  he  more  resembled  it!     Oh,  why 
Was  he  not  still  more  like,  and  could  not  die? 

227 


Books  in  General 

What  did  become  of  Charles  is  suggested  by  "  the 
Lord  R  "  in  a  poem  which  appears  in  Miscellany 
Poems: 

Good  kings  are  numbered  with  Immortal  Gods 
JVhen  hence  translated  to  the  best  Abodes, 
For  Princes  (truly  great)  can  never  die, 
They  only  lay  aside  Mortality. 

After  which  we  are  told  that  the  deceased  is  in 
Olympus  passing  the  nectar  round;  an  occupation 
that  should  have  suited  him  very  well. 

Perhaps  the  suggestion  will  be  adopted.  Let 
some  publisher  with  a  series  of  anthologies  get 
somebody  to  compile  The  Hundred  Most  Fulsome 
Poems  in  the  English  Language.  It  would  be  a 
more  entertaining  book  than  most.  Very  few  ex- 
amples, I  think,  would  be  drawn  from  the  last 
hundred  years.  As  respects  the  monarchs,  Great 
Elizabeth,  the  Great  Jameses,  the  Great  Charleses, 
Great  William,  Great  Anne,  and  the  Great  Georges 
all  got  their  full  share  of  adulation.  The  break 
comes,  I  think,  with  George  IV;  since  whose  acces- 
sion we  have  lost  the  habit.  Any  one  who  should 
address  his  sovereign  to-day  in  words  like  those  ad- 
dressed to  Charles  II  by  his  subjects  (e.  g.  Great 
George,  the  planets  tremble  at  thy  nod)  would  be 
suspected  of  pulling  the  sovereign's  leg. 


228 


The  Most  Durable  Books 

THE  question  of  what  books  one  would  take 
with  one  for  a  prolonged  sojourn  on  a 
desert  island  is  an  old  one.  I  thought  it 
had  lost  its  interest  for  me,  as  too  remote.  For  I 
do  not  propose  to  live  on  a  desert  island;  and  if  ever, 
by  accident,  I  am  cast  upon  the  shore  of  one,  cling- 
ing to  a  solitary  plank,  it  is  unlikely  that  I  shall  have 
spent  the  last  hour  on  shipboard  selecting  mental 
food  for  a  highly  problematical  future  as  a  hermit. 
But  a  letter  from  a  distressed  man  in  the  trenches 
revives  my  interest  in  the  question.  He  complains 
that  he  very  rapidly  exhausts  the  books  that  are  sent 
him;  that  few  of  them  are  much  use  as  permanent 
companions;  and  that,  as  they  take  up  room,  he  can 
carry  only  a  small  bundle  of  them  about  with  him. 
He  cannot  make  up  his  mind  which  ones  to  get  and 
stick  to ;  and  he  ends  by  putting  the  ancient  poser  to 
me:  "What  three"  (it  is  always  three)  "books 
would  you  rather  have  with  you  if  you  had  to  live 
on  a  desert  island?"  He  adds,  with  somewhat  un- 
necessary bluntness,  that  he  will  not  believe  me  if  I 
say  that  one  of  them  would  be  the  Bible. 

I  suppose  there  must  be  some  definition  of  what  a 
book  —  what  one  book  —  is.  Otherwise  one's  first 
impulse  is  to  demand,  as  the  companions  of  solitude, 

229 


Books  in  General 

the  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  the  Dictionary  of  Nat- 
ional Biography,  and  the  Oxford  English  Dictionary 
—  say  some  hundred  and  twenty  volumes  in  all. 
With  these  one  could  spend  a  fairly  long  life  in 
retreat  without  ever  reading  the  same  page  twice. 
One  might  even  read  with  a  definite  scheme  which 
would  give  one  the  semblance  of  systematic  inquiry 
united  with  a  happy  unexpectedness  of  route.  Sup- 
pose, for  example,  one  were  to  start  each  day  from 
something  one  had  seen  in  the  morning.  A  boa- 
constrictor,  for  instance.  Having  twisted  its  neck 
and  left  it  for  dead  —  castaways  are  very  powerful 
fellows  —  one  would  go  home  to  the  old  hut  and 
refer  to  Boa  in  the  Encyclopedia.  Having  learnt 
all  about  its  anatomy,  progenitiveness,  and  habitats, 
one  would  then  refer  to  the  Oxford  Dictionary  for 
the  derivation  of  its  name.  Underneath  the  phil- 
ological discourse  would  be  quotations  from  authors 
who  had  referred  to  the  beast  or  to  its  feathery 
similitude.  The  swift  advent  of  the  tropic  night 
would  find  one  still  immersed  in  the  D.N.B.  lives  of 
these  authors.  On  a  large  rock  outside  one  would 
keep,  with  a  charred  stick,  a  list  of  the  objects  al- 
ready dealt  with;  once  in  a  way  perhaps,  for  senti- 
ment's sake,  one  would  start  from  an  old  word  again 
and  revive  memories  of  the  Boa  Trail.  A  person 
of  simple  tastes,  granted  the  island  produced  enough 
goats  and  not  too  many  constrictors,  might  well 
spend  in  this  way  a  life  as  contented  as  Horace's. 
But  to  select  those  three  books  would  be  cheating. 
230 


The  Most  Durable  Books 

One  might  fairly  suggest,  in  such  a  connexion,  that 
a  book  is  either  ( i )  any  single  coherent  work  by 
one  author,  or  two  in  collaboration;  or  (2)  any 
series  of  works  which  either  has  been,  or  might  rea- 
sonably be  expected  to  be,  published  in  a  single  vol- 
ume. The  edition  for  island  use  would  not,  how- 
ever, necessarily  be  a  one-volume  edition.  This 
rules  out  these  distended  works  of  reference,  whilst 
letting  in  every  single  piece  of  creative  literature  that 
exists.  There  may  seem  to  be  an  unfair  discrimina- 
tion between  author  and  author,  the  poets,  especially, 
as  a  body,  being  at  a  great  advantage  over  the  novel- 
ists; but  if  novelists  will  be  so  verbose  they  must 
suffer  for  it.  What,  then,  would  one's  three  books 
be? 

I  can  think  of  a  good  many  books  that  I  have 
not  read  and  that  I  hope  to  enjoy  reading.  There 
is  The  Life  of  John  Buncle,  there  is  Old  Mortality, 
there  is  Hard  Times,  there  is  Tom  Paine's  Rights 
of  Man,  there  is  Hooker's  Ecclesiastical  Polity  — 
and  I  am  imperfectly  acquainted  with  the  works  of 
Ben  Jonson  and  Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  (I  have 
also  not  read  Ordeal  by  Battle,  and  I  don't  intend 
to.)  But  the  mere  fact  that  one  has  not  read  a 
work  which  one  knows  to  be  interesting  is  not  enough 
to  qualify  it.  It  would  be  enough  if  one  were  pro- 
posing to  be  marooned  for  a  fortnight  or  three  weeks 
and  then  taken  off  the  island  by  "  willing  hands  " ; 
but  the  books  one  wants  for  a  residence  of  many 

231 


Books  in  General 

years  are  books  one  is  sufficiently  familiar  with  to  be 
certain  that  they  will  not  grow  stale  at  the  fifty-fifth 
reading. 

Well,  Gibbon  is  a  large  and  a  very  long  book. 
I  have  been  through  it  once,  and  I  am  pretty  sure 
I  shall  do  so  again.  But  after  that  I  suspect  that 
the  passages  with  pencil-marks  beside  them  will  sat- 
isfy me.  I  certainly  could  not,  just  after  finishing 
it,  recommence  it  at  once,  as  Lord  Randolph 
Churchill  used  to  do,  or  make  a  practice  of  dipping 
into  it  daily.  Great  as  it  is,  it  is  not  sufficiently 
varied  or  sufficiently  human.  For  perpetual  refer- 
ence no  general  history,  I  think,  would  do ;  one  must 
have  something  more  of  the  flavour  of  everyday 
humanity  in  it.  And  every  mood  and  every  kind 
of  character  must  be  represented.  Though  the 
books  may  supplement  one  another,  one  finds  one's 
choice  growing  at  once  very  narrow.  Even  Horace 
Walpole's  Letters  or  Saint-Simon's  Memoirs  would 
pall  —  at  any  rate  on  me.  Shakespeare  will  do;  but 
I  cannot  personally  think  of  anything  which,  for  me, 
would  contest  the  other  places  with  Boswell  and 
Rabelais,  unless  it  were  Morte  d' Arthur. 

There  are  people,  no  doubt,  who  would  take  Don 
Quixote  or  Montaigne.  One  man  I  know  thinks 
that  Tristram  Shandy  would  go  with  him.  But 
Sterne  is  too  short;  one  would  get  to  know  him  by 
heart  in  a  month  or  two.  Robinson  Crusoe  would 
232 


The  Most  Durable  Books 

have  obvious  advantages,  especially  in  an  illustrated 
edition  —  which  would  provide  one  with  useful 
models  when  one  was  cutting  out  one's  garments. 
But  I  think  I  should  take  the  three  I  have  mentioned 
—  unless,  indeed,  I  approached  the  matter  from 
quite  a  different  angle.  There  is  a  strong  case  for 
taking  a  selection  of  the  more  morose  and  bewil- 
dered modern  novels  —  say  La  Curee,  he  Paradis 
des  Dames,  and  VAssommoir,  or  a  judicious  selec- 
tion from  Artzybascheff,  Mr.  Cannan,  and  Mr. 
D.  H.  Lawrence.  For  these  would  do  a  great  deal 
to  reconcile  one  to  one's  lonely  lot.  Whenever  one 
was  regretting  the  world  of  men  one  would  find  an 
everflowing  spring  of  consolation  in  them.  "  After 
all,"  one  would  say,  after  each  agued  page,  "  there 
is  a  good  deal  to  be  said  for  a  desert  island." 


233 


The  Worst  Style  in  the 
World 

THE  word  "  euphuism "  is  commonly  em- 
ployed: it  is  also  commonly  confused  with 
"  euphemism."  The  thing  is  very  prop- 
erly condemned,  and  the  book  that  gave  it  its  name 
is  usually  condemned  with  it.  But  it  is  probable  that 
John  Lyly's  Euphues  has  frequently  been  abused  by 
persons  who  have  never  opened  it.  At  any  rate, 
confessions  of  having  read  it  are  few,  and  have 
usually  proceeded  from  the  small  minority  who  have 
found  merit  in  the  book.  It  is  very  interesting, 
therefore,  to  see  that  Messrs.  CroU  and  Clemons 
have  just  published,  through  Routledge,  a  new  edi- 
tion, fully  annotated.  A  generation  unfamiliar  with 
it  will  have  a  chance  of  reassessing  it. 

The  work  is  in  two  parts.  Euphues:  The 
Anatomy  of  fVit  was  first  published  in  1578; 
Euphues  and  his  England  in  1580.  How  imme- 
diately popular  it  was  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  (my 
authority  is  Mr.  Arundell  Esdaile's  Bibliography  of 
English  Tales  and  Romances)  four  editions  of  the 
first  part,  three  of  the  second,  and  then  at  least 
seventeen  editions  of  both  parts  together  were  pub- 
234 


The  Worst  Style  in  the  World 

lished  in  fifty-eight  years.  (His  name,  incidentally, 
is  spelt  on  various  title-pages  Lylly,  Lyly,  Lylie, 
Lilie,  Lyllie,  and  Lily:  a  diversity  worthy  of 
"  Shakspear.")  For  a  time  almost  everybody  with 
any  pretensions  talked  and  wrote  euphuism,  very 
often  employing  Lyly's  fantastic  alliterations,  anti- 
theses, and  superfluous  imagery  without  the  content 
of  sense  that  Lyly  always  had.  Some  writers  openly 
ridiculed  it.  Shakespeare  and  Jonson  made  sport 
with  euphuistic  characters,  and  Sidney  (who,  I  think, 
did  not  entirely  escape  the  influence)   ridiculed  this 

Talking  of  beasts,  birds,  fishes,  flies. 
Playing  with  words  and  idle  similes. 

But  the  development  of  English  prose  was  sensibly 
changed  by  it,  and  its  effect  may  be  traced  in  the 
prose  of  Donne,  Taylor,  and  Browne.  The  book 
itself,  however,  like  all  extravagantly  mannered 
books,  had  its  slump  in  the  end.  Early  in  James  Fs 
reign  the  wider  public  seems  to  have  turned  away 
from  it,  and  in  1632,  E.  Blount,  the  publisher,  pref- 
acing an  edition  of  Lyly's  plays,  referred  to  him 
as  a  forgotten  poet  whose  grave  he  was  digging  up. 
Blount's  own  language  is  a  terrible  example  of  what 
Euphuism  may  come  to.  He  calls  his  author  "  a 
Lilly  growing  in  a  Grove  of  Lawrels  " : 

"  These  Papers  of  his,  lay  like  dead  Lawrels  in  a 
Churchyard;    But    I    have    gathered   the    scattered 

235 


Books  in  General 

branches  up,  and  by  a  Charme  (gotten  from  Apollo) 
made  them  greene  agalne,  and  set  up  as  Epitaphes 
to  his  Memory.  A  slnne  it  were  to  suffer  these 
Rare  Monuments  of  wit,  to  lie  covered  with  Dust, 
and  a  shame,  such  conceipted  Comedies,  should  be 
acted  by  none  but  wormes." 

From  1636  to  1868,  when  the  late  Professor  Arber 
(a  man  whose  memory  has  not  been  sufficiently 
honoured)  published  his  edition  in  the  "  English 
Reprints,"  Euphues  never  appeared  again,  save  in 
two  brief  eighteenth-century  adaptations.  For  al- 
most a  hundred  years  his  names  was  never  men- 
tioned; Eilly  the  astrologer  was  much  better  known. 
Most  eighteenth-  and  nineteenth-century  critics  dis- 
missed him  as  a  man  who,  in  Sir  Walter  Scott's 
words,  deformed  his  works  "  by  the  most  unnatural 
affectation  that  ever  disgraced  a  printed  page." 
One  of  the  few  exceptions  was  Charles  Kingsley, 
who  in  Westward  Ho!  attacks  Lyly's  critics  with 
tremendous  enthusiasm: 

"  I  shall  only  answer  by  asking.  Have  they  ever 
read  it?  For  if  they  have  done  so,  I  pity  them 
if  they  have  not  found  it,  in  spite  of  occasional 
tediousness  and  pedantry,  as  brave,  righteous,  and 
pious  a  book  as  man  need  look  into;  and  wish  for 
no  better  proof  of  the  nobleness  and  virtue  of  the 
Elizabethan  age  than  the  fact  that  Euphues  and  the 
Arcadia  were  the  two  popular  romances  of  the  day." 

Turning  at  this  stage,  on  a  sudden  impulse,  to  my 
236 


The  Worst  Style  in  the  World 

Encyclopaedia,  to  see  whether  sense  is  talked  about 
Lyly  there,  I  find  that  the  article  on  him  is  by  Mrs. 
Humphry  Ward.     Life  is  full  of  surprises. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  everybody  is  right, 
except  those  who  do  not  trouble  to  read  the  book. 
Kingsley  is  perfectly  correct;  it  would  be  difficult  to 
find  a  book  of  the  time  finer  in  feeling  or  inspired 
by  higher  conceptions  of  conduct.  Lyly  is  as  full 
of  common  sense  as  of  refinement;  and  the  fact  that 
he  drew  much  of  his  discourses  on  education  and 
religion  from  other  writers  does  not  diminish  the 
impression  made  by  his  attitude  to  life.  His  narra- 
tive does  not  come  to  much;  most  of  his  space  is 
occupied  by  harangues,  debates,  treatises,  and  let- 
ters; his  Neapolitan  and  English  love-stories  move 
at  a  snail's  pace.  But  —  his  first  discussion,  by  the 
way,  is  on  heredity  and  environment  which,  with 
startling  modernity,  he  calls  Nature  and  Nurture  — 
he  usually  argues  about  things  of  perennial  interest, 
and  always  with  subtlety,  delicacy,  and  an  insight 
into  the  human  heart.  Still,  Sir  Walter  Scott  really 
was  not  exaggerating  the  monstrosity  —  though  it 
is  not  uniformly  monstrous  —  of  his  style.  It  takes 
some  patience  to  put  up  with  the  construction  of  his 
sentences  and  his  recurrent  bunches  of  similes  in 
order  to  follow  his  argument.  On  the  second  page 
you  fall  plump  into  this  sentence: 

"  The  freshest  colours  soonest  fade,  the  keenest 
Rasor  soonest  tourneth  his  edge,  the  finest  cloth  is 

237 


Books  in  General 

soonest  eaten  with  the  Moathes,  and  the  Cambricke 
sooner  stayned  than  the  course  Canvas:  which  ap- 
peared well  in  this  EupTiues,  whose  wit  beeing  like 
waxe,  apt  to  receive  any  impression,  and  bearing 
the  head  in  his  own  hande,  either  to  use  the  rayne  or 
the  spurre,  disdayning  counsaile,  leaving  his  country, 
loathing  his  old  acquaintance,  thought  either  by  wit 
to  obteyne  some  conquest,  or  by  shame  to  abyde 
some  conflict,  who  preferring  fancy  before  friends, 
and  this  present  humor,  before  honour  to  come,  laid 
reason  in  water  being  too  salt  for  his  tast,  and  fol- 
lowed unbridaled  affection,  most  pleasant  for  his 
tooth." 

The  mania  for  balance  and  alliteration  is  shown 
here,  but  not  the  equally  characteristic  passion  for 
piling  animals  and  plants,  mainly  out  of  Pliny,  into 
mounds  of  comparisons.  They  are  most  tolerable 
when  the  statements  made  are  least  verifiable. 
Here  are  two  specimens : 

"  The  filthy  Sow  when  she  is  sicke,  eateth  the 
Sea-Crab,  and  is  immediately  recured:  the  Torteyse 
having  tasted  the  Viper,  sucketh  Origanum  and  is 
quickly  revived:  the  Beare  ready  to  pine  licketh  up 
the  Ants  and  is  recovered :  the  Dog  having  surf etted 
to  procure  his  vomitte,  eateth  grasse  and  findeth 
remedy:  the  Hart  beein  perced  with  the  dart,  run- 
neth out  of  hand  to  the  hearb  Dicbanum,  and  is 
healed." 
238 


The  Worst  Style  in  the  World 

"  Then  good  Euphues  let  the  falling  out  of 
friendes  be  a  renewing  of  affection,  that  in  this  we 
may  resemble  the  bones  of  the  Lyon,  which  lying 
stil  and  not  moved  begin  to  rot,  but  being  stricken 
one  against  another  break  out  like  fire,  and  wax 
greene." 

Yet  sometimes  he  will  conclude  a  paragraph  of  such 
abnormalities  with  a  short,  humorous,  or  pathetic 
sentence  which  is  most  effective;  and  even  sentences 
bearing  the  evident  marks  of  his  style  sometimes 
move  one  strongly  in  their  context.  I  may  quote 
such  sentences  as  Lucilla's  two  complaints:  "But 
I  would  to  God  Euphues  would  repair  hither  that 
the  sight  of  him  might  mitigate  some  part  of  my 
martyrdome,"  and  the  extremely  sibilant  but  musical 
'*  O  my  Euphues,  lyttle  dost  thou  knowe  the  sodeyn 
sorrowe  that  I  susteine  for  thy  sweete  sake."  What 
a  really  judicious  critic  would  do  would  be  to  ridicule 
the  style  and  admire  the  b^ook. 


239 


The  Reconstruction  of 
Orthography 

RECONSTRUCTION  is  a  blessed  word,  and 
very  comprehensive:  but  I  doubt  whether 
the  Government,  when  it  established  the 
Reconstruction  Committee,  anticipated  that  it  would 
be  asked  to  consider  the  problem  of  Spelling  Re- 
form. The  Simplified  Spelling  Society,  however, 
has  sent  it  a  memorial  urging  that  "  the  reform  of 
English  spelling  is  eminently  one  that  merits  the 
practical  consideration  of  the  Committee."  The 
signatories  include  a  number  of  scientific  and  other 
professors,  scores  of  teachers,  and  a  tail  composed 
of  "  men  of  business,  men  of  letters,  editors,  etc." 
The  editors  do  not  include  any  man  who  edits  a 
London  daily  or  a  literary  weekly,  though  the  direc- 
tive minds  of  the  Lady's  Realm  and  the  Ardrossan 
and  Saltcoats  Herald  are  in  the  movement;  and  the 
only  "  men  of  letters  "  are  Messrs.  William  Archer, 
H.  G.  Wells,  Eden  Phillpotts,  T.  Seccombe  (at 
whom  I  am  surprised),  and  a  few  persons  who 
combine  authorship  with  business  or  with  *'  etc." 
One  did  not  want  this  piece  of  negative  evidence  to 
convince  one  that  authors,  as  a  body,  will  fight 
Simplifyd  Speling  to  the  last  mute  k.  The  memo- 
240 


The  Reconstruction  of  Orthography 

rial  makes  the  usual  points  about  saving  children's 
time,  facilitating  the  acquisition  of  foreign  langu- 
ages, lightening  the  work  of  teaching  defective  chil- 
dren, and  assisting  aliens  who  are  acquiring  our 
tongue.  We  are  also  told  that  "  the  demand  for  a 
rational  spelling  may  be  compared  to  that  for  deci- 
malizing our  coinage  and  our  weights  and  meas- 
ures." 

This  comparison  seems  to  me  very  misleading, 
if  by  decimalization  is  meant  the  introduction  of  the 
Continental  metric  system.  For  this  latter  is  uni- 
form in  various  countries,  whereas  the  reform  sug- 
gested by  the  Simplified  Spelhng  Society  would  do 
nothing  to  approximate  the  sound-values  of  our  let- 
ters to  those  of  letters  in  foreign  tongues.  Cosmo- 
politan systems  have  been  proposed,  very  complex 
and  full  of  odd  new  letters;  but  this  Society's  sugges- 
tions, whilst  eliminating  some  difficulties  for  the 
foreigner,  would  leave  English  just  as  difficult  for  a 
Frenchman  to  pronounce  as  French  is  for  an  English- 
man. Take  the  phrase  (I  find  it  here)  "A  Ferst 
Reeder  in  Simplifyd  Speling."  A  Frenchman 
would  still  mispronounce  it.  If  he  wished  to  indi- 
cate those  sounds  In  the  French  way  he  would  write 
(I  am  not  a  phonetician)  something  like  "  E  Foeust," 
etc.  So  the  Society  had  better  not  pitch  its  promises 
too  high.  This,  nevertheless,  remains  a  minor  point. 
The  chief  considerations  undoubtedly  are  the  do- 
mestic effects  of  this  piece  of  Reconstruction. 

241 


Books  in  General 

It  sounds  all  very  simple  and  convincing  when 
people  say:  "Our  spoken  language  has  diverged 
from  our  written  language :  let  our  written  language 
be  made  the  same  as  our  spoken  language."  But 
directly  you  go  into  the  matter  you  find  that  the 
difficulties  are  enormous.  That  we  have  no  one 
spoken  language  is  a  commonplace.  Our  speech 
varies  from  fashion  to  fashion  and  from  locality  to 
locality.  "  Educated  "  English  at  present  has  an 
increasing  Cockney  element  in  it.  The  common 
"  cultured  "  pronunciation  of  '*  No,"  for  instance, 
embodies  an  "  o  "  sound  which  is  anything  but  pure. 
Many  rustics,  however,  still  pronounce  it  with  a  good 
broad  vowel.  Even  the  spelling  reformers  do  not 
agree  about  words.  A.  J.  Ellis  thought  the  "  r  " 
at  the  end  of  "proper"  was  still  there;  Sweet 
thought  it  had  disappeared.  As  a  matter  of  fact; 
it  is  both  there  and  not  there:  in  some  classes  and 
parts  it  is  pronounced,  in  some  it  is  not.  And  it  is 
quite  possible  that  it  will  become  universal  again. 

This  gets  us  on  to  the  question  of  change  in  time. 
The  Reformers  can  be  met  both  ways.  If  it  be 
argued  that  phonetic  spelling  fixes  pronunciation, 
why  have  we  abandoned  the  old  pronunciation  of 
words  once  phonetically  spelt?  Shakespeare  pro- 
nounced the  initial  "  k  "  in  "  know  "  and  "  knee." 
We  have  dropped  it  out.  And  we  have  no  guaran- 
tee that  spelling  these  words  according  to  our  present 
slack  pronunciation  would  not  be  followed  by  an- 
242 


The  Reconstruction  of  Orthography 

other  divergence.  The  history  of  the  word  '*  sea  " 
is  odd.  In  the  Middle  Ages  it  was  spelt  "  see  "  and 
pronounced  "  say."  In  Tudor  times  the  spelling 
was  altered  to  "  sea  "  in  order  to  make  the  spelling 
correspond  to  the  sound  (the  same  as  that  in 
"great").  We  have  reached  a  pronunciation 
which  the  original  spelling  would  have  correctly  rep- 
resented! If  it  be  argued  that  spelling  does  not 
fix  pronunciation,  the  case  for  the  reform  is  seriously 
weakened.  The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  nothing 
can  fix  a  pronunciation,  but  that  the  written  word, 
especially  in  an  age  of  universal  literacy,  does  exer- 
cise a  pull.  And  that  pull  can  as  well  be  exercised 
by  our  present  spellings  as  by  new  ones.  I  think  it 
was  Titus  Oates  who  went  to  the  scaffold,  or  some- 
where, crying  "Lard!  Lard!"  Had  he  been  a 
spelling  reformer  he  would  have  quite  unnecessarily 
assimilated  the  spelling  of  "  lord  "  with  that  of  the 
name  of  the  white  stuff  they  keep  in  bladders:  a 
distinct  loss  to  the  language.  Mr.  Murison,  in  the 
Cambridge  History  of  Literature,  points  out  that  the 
word  "kiln"  was  originally  pronounced  as  spelt; 
then  for  some  time  the  "  n  "  was  dropped;  then  the 
old  pronunciation  returned.  The  same  thing  hap- 
pened to  words  containing  the  diphthong  "  oi." 
"  Join  "  and  "  oil  "  were,  in  Middle  English,  pro- 
nounced as  they  are  now.  But  for  centuries  men 
called  them  "  jine  "  and  "  ile,"  a  habit  that  still 
persists  amongst  many  of  the  most  eager  supporters 
of  Spelling  Reform.     "  H's  "  were  dropped  whole- 

243 


Books  in  General 

sale  and  then  picked  up  again.  We  never  know, 
in  fact,  whether  we  shall  not  return  to  an  old  way 
of  speech;  and  we  might  as  well  do  that  as  diverge 
from  an  old  way  of  writing. 

The  great  consolation  of  conservatives  in  this 
matter  is  the  length  of  time  during  which  the  en- 
thusiasts have  continuously  failed  to  bring  about  a 
change.  This  is  the  oldest  of  the  Campaigns.  It 
was  already  old  when  in  1585  a  book  was  published 
with  this  title-page  (differently  accented)  : 

"  AEsopz  Fable'z  in  true  Orto'graphy  with  Gram- 
mar-notz.  Heryuntoo  ar  al'so  jooined  the  short 
sentencez  of  the  wyz  Cato  imprinted  with  lyk  form 
and  order:  both  of  which  Autorz  ar  translated  out 
of  Latin  intoo  English.     By  William  Bullokar." 

I  don't  suppose  that  the  Reconstruction  Committee 
will  find  time  to  consider  this  matter.  But  if  they 
do  think  of  handling  it  they  should  realize  that  they 
are  going  to  put  their  hands  into  a  nestful  of  the 
largest  hornets. 


244 


Mr.  James  Joyce 

MR.  JAMES  JOYCE  is  a  curious  phenom- 
enon. He  first  appeared  in  literary 
Dublin  about  (I  suppose)  a  dozen  years 
ago:  a  strangely  solitary  and  self-sufficient  and 
obviously  gifted  man.  He  published  a  small  book 
of  verse  with  one  or  two  good  lyrics  in  it;  and  those 
who  foresaw  a  future  for  him  became  certain  they 
were  right.  He  published  nothing;  but  his  reputa- 
tion spread  even  amongst  those  who  had  never  read 
a  line  he  had  written.  He  disappeared  from  Ireland 
and  went  to  Austria,  where  he  settled.  The  war 
came,  and  soon  afterwards  his  second  book  — 
Dubliners  —  was  issued  and  reviewed  with  a  general 
deference,  after  wandering  about  for  years  among 
publishers  who  had  been  fighting  shy  of  it  because 
of  its  undoubted  unpleasantness  and  a  reference  to 
Edward  VII.  Another  interval  and  A  Portrait  of 
the  Artist  as  a  Young  Man  began  to  run  serially  in 
the  Egoist.  "  The  Egoist,  Ltd.,"  has  now  pub- 
lished this  book,  and  nobody  is  surprised  to  find  all 
writing  London  talking  about  it.  Mr.  Joyce  has 
only  done  what  was  expected. 

Whether  this  book  is  supposed  to  be  a  novel  or 
an  autobiography  I  do  not  know  or  care.     Presum- 

245 


Books  in  General 

ably  some  characters  and  episodes  are  fictitious,  or 
the  author  would  not  even  have  bothered  to  employ 
fictitious  names.  But  one  is  left  with  the  impres- 
sion that  almost  all  the  way  one  has  been  listening 
to  sheer  undecorated,  unintensified  truth.  Mr. 
Joyce's  title  suggests,  well  enough,  his  plan.  There 
is  no  "  plot."  The  subsidiary  characters  appear  and 
recede,  and  not  one  of  them  is  involved  throughout 
in  the  career  of  the  hero.  Stephen  Dedalus  is  born; 
he  goes  to  school;  he  goes  to  college.  His  strug- 
gles are  mainly  inward:  there  is  nothing  unusual  in 
that.  He  has  religious  crises :  heroes  of  fiction  fre- 
quently do.  He  fights  against,  succumbs  to,  and 
again  fights  against  sexual  temptation:  we  have 
stories  on  those  lines  in  hundreds.  All  the  same,  we 
have  never  had  a  novel  in  the  least  degree  resembling 
this  one;  whether  it  is  mainly  success  or  mainly  fail- 
ure, it  stands  by  itself. 

You  recognize  its  individuality  in  the  very  first 
paragraph.  Mr.  Joyce  tries  to  put  down  the  vivid 
and  incoherent  memories  of  childhood  in  a  vivid 
and  incoherent  way:  to  show  one  Stephen  Dedalus's 
memories  precisely  as  one's  own  memories  might 
appear  if  one  ransacked  one's  mind.     He  opens: 

"  Once  upon  a  time  and  a  very  good  time  it  was 
there  was  a  moocow  coming  down  along  the  road 
and  the  moocow  that  was  down  along  the  road  met 
a  nicens  little  boy  named  baby  tuckoo  .  .  ." 
246 


Mr.  James  Joyce 

"  His  mother  had  a  nicer  smell  than  his  father," 
he  proceeds.  There  is  verisimilitude  in  this;  but 
a  critic  on  the  look-out  for  Mr.  Joyce's  idiosyncrasies 
would  certainly  fasten  upon  his  preoccupation  with 
the  olfactory  —  which  sometimes  leads  him  to  write 
things  he  might  as  well  have  left  to  be  guessed  at  — 
as  one  of  them.  Still,  it  is  a  minor  characteristic. 
His  major  characteristics  are  his  intellectual  integ- 
rity, his  sharp  eyes,  and  his  ability  to  set  down  pre- 
cisely what  he  wants  to  set  down.  He  is  a  realist 
of  the  first  order.  You  feel  that  he  means  to  allow 
no  personal  prejudice  or  predilection  to  distort  the 
record  of  what  he  sees.  His  perceptions  may  be 
naturally  limited;  but  his  honesty  in  registering  their 
results  is  complete.  It  is  even  a  little  too  complete. 
There  are  some  things  that  we  are  all  familiar  with 
and  that  ordinary  civilized  manners  (not  phari- 
saism^  prevent  us  from  importing  into  general  con- 
versation. Mr.  Joyce  can  never  resist  a  dunghill. 
He  is  not,  in  fact,  quite  above  the  pleasure  of  being 
shocking.  Generally  speaking,  however,  he  carries 
conviction.  He  is  telling  the  truth  about  a  type  and 
about  life  as  it  presents  itself  to  that  type. 

He  is  a  genuine  realist:  that  is  to  say,  he  puts 
in  the  exaltations  as  well  as  the  depressions,  the 
inner  life  as  well  as  the  outer.  He  is  not  morosely 
determined  to  paint  everything  drab.  Spiritual  pas- 
sions are  as  powerful  to  him  as  physical  passions; 
and  as  far  as  his  own  bias  goes  it  may  as  well  be  in 

247 


Books  in  General 

favour  of  Catholic  asceticism  as  of  sensual  material- 
ism. For  his  detachment  as  author  is  almost  in- 
human. If  Stephen  is  himself,  then  he  is  a  self  who 
is  expelled  and  impartially  scrutinized,  without  pity 
or  "  allowances,"  directly  Mr.  Joyce  the  artist  gets 
to  work.  And  of  the  other  characters  one  may  say 
that  they  are  always  given  their  due,  always  drawn 
so  as  to  evoke  the  sympathy  they  deserve,  yet  are 
never  openly  granted  the  sympathy  of  the  author. 
He  is  the  outsider,  the  observer,  the  faithful  selector 
of  significant  traits,  moral  and  physical;  his  judg- 
ments, if  he  forms  them,  are  concealed.  He  never 
even  shows  by  a  quiver  of  the  pen  that  anything  dis- 
tresses him. 

His  prose  instrument  is  a  remarkable  one.  Few 
contemporary  writers  are  effective  in  such  diverse 
ways;  his  method  varies  with  the  subject-matter  and 
never  fails  him.  His  dialogue  (as  in  the  remark- 
able discussions  at  home  about  Barnell  and  Stephen's 
education)  is  as  close  to  the  dialogue  of  life  as  any- 
thing I  have  ever  come  across;  though  he  does  not 
make  the  gramophonic  mistake  of  spinning  it  out  as 
it  is  usually  spun  out  in  life  and  in  novels  that  aim 
at  a  faithful  reproduction  of  life  and  only  succeed 
in  sending  one  to  sleep.  And  his  descriptive  and 
narrative  passages  include  at  one  pole  sounding  pe- 
riods of  classical  prose  and  at  the  other  disjointed 
and  almost  futuristic  sentences.  The  finest  sus- 
tained pages  in  the  book  contain  the  sermon  in  which 
248 


Mr.  James  Joyce 

a  dear,  simple  old  priest  expounds  the  unimaginable 
horrors  of  hell :  the  immeasurable  solid  stench  as  of 
a  "  huge  and  rolling  human  fungus,"  the  helpless- 
ness of  the  damned,  "  not  even  able  to  remove  from 
the  eye  a  worm  that  gnaws  it,"  the  fierceness  of  the 
fire  in  which  "  the  blood  seethes  and  boils  in  the 
veins,  the  brains  are  boiling  in  the  skull,  the  heart 
in  the  breast  glowing  and  bursting,  the  bowels  a 
red-hot  mass  of  burning  pulp,  the  tender  eyes  flam- 
ing like  molten  balls."  Stephen,  after  listening  to 
this, 

"  came  down  the  aisle  of  the  chapel,  his  legs  shaking 
and  the  scalp  of  his  head  trembling  as  though  it  had 
been  touched  by  ghostly  fingers.  He  passed  up  the 
staircase  and  into  the  corridor  along  the  walls  of 
which  the  overcoats  and  waterproofs  hung  like 
gibbeted  malefactors,  headless  and  dripping  and 
shapeless." 

No  wonder.  For  myself,  I  had  had  an  idea  that 
this  kind  of  exposition  had  died  with  Drexelius;  but^ 
after  I  had  read  it  I  suddenly  and  involuntarily 
thought,  "Good  Lord,  suppose  it  is  all  true  I" 
That  is  a  sufficient  testimony  to  the  power  of  Mr. 
Joyce's  writing. 

This  is  not  everybody's  book.  The  later  portion, 
consisting  largely  of  rather  dull  student  discussions, 
is  dull;  nobody  could  be  inspired  by  the  story,  and 

249 


Books  in  General 

it  had  better  be  neglected  by  any  one  who  is  easily 
disgusted.  Its  interest  is  mainly  technical,  using  the 
word  in  its  broadest  sense;  and  its  greatest  appeal, 
consequently,  is  made  to  the  practising  artist  in  lit- 
erature. What  Mr.  Joyce  will  do  with  his  powers 
in  the  future  it  is  impossible  to  conjecture.  I  con- 
ceive that  he  does  not  know  himself:  that,  indeed, 
the  discovery  of  a  form  is  the  greatest  problem  in 
front  of  him.  It  is  doubtful  if  he  will  make  a 
novelist. 


250 


Tennessee 

LETTERS  from  strangers  can  usually  be  ac- 
counted for.  But  why  on  earth  I,  more 
than  any  one  else,  should  have  received  a 
letter  from  America  asking  me  to  contribute  towards 
the  re-establishment  of  a  backwoods  library  I  don't 
know.  This,  however,  has  been  my  experience,  and 
I  trust  that  I  am  not  endangering  the  new  Anglo- 
Saxon  Entente  by  relieving  my  feelings  in  the  fol- 
lowing: 

LINES 

Written  on  receiving  from  the  Librarian  of  a  Col- 
lege which  educates  "  the  mountain  youth  of 
Tennessee  "  a  request  for  "  a  hook  "  to  assist 
in  the  re-formation  of  the  Library,  which  was 
recently  destroyed  by  fire. 

Mine  ears  have  heard  your  distant  moan, 

O  mountain  youth  of  Tennessee; 
Even  the  bowels  of  a  stone 

tVould  melt  to  your  librarian's  plea. 
Although  we're  parted  by  the  ocean, 

I'm  most  distressed  about  your  fire: 
Only  I  haven't  any  notion 

What  sort  of  volume  you  require. 

251 


Books  in  General 

/  have  a  Greene,  a  Browne,  a  Gray, 

A  Gilbert  fVhite,  a  JVilliam  Black, 
Trollope  and  Lovelace,  Swift  and  Gay, 

And  Hunt  and  Synge:  nor  do  I  lack 
More  sober  folk  for  whom  out  there 

There  may  be  rather  better  scope. 
Three  worthy  men  of  reverend  air, 

A  Donne,  a  Prior,  and  a  Pope. 

Peacock  or  Lamb,  discreetly  taken, 

Might  fill  the  hungry  mountain  belly. 
Or  Hogg  or  Suckling,  Crabbe  or  Bacon 

(Bacon's  not  Shakespeare,  Crabbe  is  Shelley) 
And  if  —  for  this  is  on  the  cards  — 

You  do  not  like  this  mental  food, 
I  might  remit  less  inward  bards: 

My  well-worn  Spenser  or  my  Hood. 

Longfellows  may  be  in  your  line 

(Littles  we  know  are  second-raters), 
Or  one  might  speed  across  the  brine 

A  Mayflower  full  of  Pilgrim  Paters. 
Or,  then  again,  you  may  devote 

Yourselves  to  less  asthetic  lore, 
Yet  if  I  send  you  out  a  Grote* 

For  all  I  know  you'll  ask  for  More. 

O  thus  proceeds  my  vacillation: 

For  now  the  obvious  thought  returns 

•  Or,  with  an  appearance  of  greater  generosity,  one  might  return 
them  the  Pound  they  sent  us  some  years  since. 
252 


Tennessee 

That  after  such  a  conflagration 
A  fitting  sequel  might  be  Burns. 

And  now  again  I  change  my  mind 
And,  almost  confidently ,  feel 

That  since  to  Beg  you  are  inclined 

You  might  like  Borrow,  say,  or  Steele.  .  .  . 

Envoi 
Yes,  Prince,  this  song  shall  have  an  end. 

A  sudden  thought  has  come  to  me  — 
The  thing  is  settled:  I  shall  send 

A  Tennyson  to  Tennessee! 

But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  unless  I  get  a  special  permit 
for  the  export  of  second-hand  books,  I  shan't  be 
able  to  send  them  even  that. 


253 


Sir  William  Watson  and 
Mr.   Lloyd  George 


R 


*'T^  EPRESENTATIVES  of  literature  and 
art  "  usually  appear  in  the  Honours  Lists, 
and  they  are  usually  queer  representatives. 
The  knighted  litterateur,  as  a  rule,  is  either  a  second- 
rate  man  or  a  man  long  past  his  prime.  Possibly 
more  men  than  we  know  of  refuse  these  knighthoods. 
For  myself  I  do  not  see  what  on  earth  a  really  dis- 
tinguished artist  wants  with  a  knighthood,  unless  he 
is  poor,  and  thinks  that  a  title  would  add  a  guinea 
or  two  per  thousand  to  the  price  of  his  work.  If 
Sir  Samuel  Johnson,  Sir  Charles  Dickens,  Sir  Will- 
iam Blake,  Sir  Robert  Browning,  Sir  W.  Words- 
worth, Sir  S.  Taylor  Coleridge,  Sir  George  Mere- 
dith stood  beside  Sir  Lewis  Morris  and  Sir  W.  Rob- 
ertson Nicoll,  Sir  Henry  Dalziel,  and  Sir  Hedley  le 
Bas  (of  the  Caxton  I\iblishing  Company),  I  do  not 
conceive  that  those  eminent  writers  would  be  held  in 
greater  honour  than  they  are,  or  that  literature 
would  cut  a  more  important  figure  in  our  social  life. 
The  one  man  to  whom  a  knighthood  may  usefully 
be  given  is  the  deserving  person  who  has  worked 
conscientiously  for  years  without  adequate  recogni- 
tion and  of  whose  existence  the  public  might  —  to 
254 


Sir  Wm.  Watson  and  Mr.  Lloyd  George 

his  and  its  advantage  —  be  officially  reminded.  As 
the  crown  of  a  famous  career  a  knighthood  is  absurd. 
Sir  William  Watson  has  presumably  got  his 
knighthood  for  being  one  of  the  most  industrious 
of  the  war-poets  —  and  a  war-poet  congenial  to  the 
Powers-that-now-Be.  Twenty  years  ago  he  had  a 
greater  reputation  than  he  now  has,  and  wrote  sev- 
eral good  and  many  respectable  poems.  He  is  still 
skilful,  and  can  echo  effectively  the  accents  of  Words- 
worth and  Milton;  but  he  is  certainly  not  a  man  of 
whom  one  thinks  when  one  is  estimating  the  vital 
forces  in  contemporary  poetry.  A  new  volume, 
The  Man  who  Saw,  has  just  appeared.  The  title- 
poem  is  about  the  Prime  Minister: 

Out  of  that  land  where  Snowdon  night  by  night 

Receives  the  confidence  of  lonesome  stars, 

And  where  Carnarvon's  ruthless  battlements 

Magnificently  oppress  the  daunted  tide, 

There  comes  —  no  fabled  Merlin,  son  of  mist, 

And  brother  to  the  twilight,  but  a  man 

Who  in  a  time  terrifically  real 

Is  real  as  the  time;  formed  for  the  time; 

Not  much  beholden  to  the  munificent  Past, 

In  mind  or  spirit,  but  frankly  of  this  hour; 

No  faggot  of  perfections,  angel  or  saint. 

Created  faultless  and  intolerable ; 

No  meeting-place  of  all  the  heavenlinesses, 

But  eminently  a  man  to  stir  and  spur 

Men,  to  afflict  them  with  benign  alarm, 

^S5 


Books  in  General 

Harass  their  sluggish  and  uneager  blood, 

Till,  like  himself,  they  are  hungry  for  the  goal; 

A  man  with  something  of  the  cragginess 

Of  his  own  mountains,  something  of  the  force 

That  goads  to  their  loud  leap  the  mountain  streams. 

Sir  William  proceeds  to  a  peroration  on 

the  man  of  Celtic  blood. 
Whom  Powers  Unknown,  in  a  divine  caprice, 
Chose  and  did  make  their  instrument,  wherewith 
To  save  the  Saxon;  the  man  all  eye  and  hand, 
The  man  who  saw,  and  grasped,  and  gripped,  and 

held. 
Then  shall  each  morrow  with  its  yesterday 
Vie,  in  the  honour  of  nobly  honouring  him, 
Who  found  us  lulled  and  blindfolded  by  the  verge 
Of  fathomless  perdition  and  haled  us  back. 
And  poets  shall  dawn  in  pearl  and  gold  of  speech. 
Crowning  his  deed  with  not  less  homage,  here 
On  English  ground,  than  yonder  whence  he  rose. 

This  must  certainly  be  the  most  eulogistic  poem  ever 
written  about  a  British  politician. 

There  is  nothing  about  Mr.  W.  M.  Hughes, 
Lord  Milner,  Lord  Curzon,  or  Lord  Devonport 
in  the  volume;  these,  perhaps,  will  be  dealt  with  in 
Sir  William's  next  book,  which,  I  do  not  doubt,  will 
be  ready  before  long.  But  Sir  Edward  Carson  gets 
256 


Sir  Wm.  Watson  and  Mr.  Lloyd  George 

his  meed  in  a  sonnet  To  the  Right  Hon.  Sir  Edward 
Carson,  on  leaving  Antrim,  June  30,  19 16,  and  an- 
other sonnet  acclaims  Lord  Northcliffe  —  to  whom, 
possibly,  there  is  a  delicate  allusion  in  the  line  quoted 
above,  beginning  "  Whom  Powers."  The  sonnet  is 
called  The  Three  Alfreds;  the  three  being  King 
Alfred,  Alfred  Lord  Tennyson,  and  Alfred  Lord 
Northcliffe : 

Three  Alfreds  let  us  honour.     Him  who  drove 
His  foes  before  the  tempest  of  his  blade 
At  Ethandune  —  him  first,   the  all-glorious  Shade, 
The  care-crowned  King  whose  host  with  Guthrum 

strove. 
Next  —  though  a  thousand  years  asunder  clove 
These  twain  —  a  lord  of  realms  serenely  swayed; 
Victoria's  golden  warbler,  him  who  made 
Verse  such  as  Virgil  for  Augustus  wove. 
Last  —  neither  king  nor  bard,  but  just  a  man 
PVho,  in  the  very  whirlwind  of  our  woe. 
From  midnight  till  the  laggard  dawn  began. 
Cried  ceaseless,  "  Give  us  shells  —  more  shells,"  and 

so 
Saved  England;  saved  her  not  less  truly  than 
Her  hero  of  heroes  saved  her  long  ago. 

It  is  a  pity  that  there  could  not  have  been  added 
some  reference  to  Lord  Northcliffe's  conviction  that 
nobody  in  his  senses  ever  dreamed  of  using  shrapnel 
against   wire.     Had   the    shells   passage   been    ex- 

257 


Books  in  General 

panded  it  might  have  been  less  cacophonous.  As  it 
stands,  it  gives  rise  to  the  suspicious  illusion  that  the 
sibilant  cry  was  uttered  by  Mr.  (or  is  it  Sir?)  Wilkie 
Bard.     But  no;  it  was  "  neither  King  nor  Bard." 


258 


Stranded 

N' 


''"]^  X^»"  ^  thought,  "  I  won't  take  any  books 
with  me.  I  want  a  rest.  I  shall  swim. 
I  shall  catch  fish.  There  is  sure  to  be  a 
billiard-room  in  that  pub.,  and  pretty  certain  to  be  a 
few  people  who  play  bridge.  The  overtaxed  brain 
must  be  allowed  relaxation.  So  good-bye,  Plato; 
good-bye,  Spinoza;  good-bye,  Samuel  Rawson  Gar- 
diner; good-jbye,  Freud.     I  won't  take  any  of  you." 

I  had  been  in  the  place  twenty-four  hours,  and 
had  plumbed  the  depths  of  my  neighbours'  incapacity 
to  play  any  games  of  skill  or  chance  (except  pos- 
sibly—  I  did  not  ask  this  —  loo  and  vingt-et-un), 
when,  sauntering  down  the  main,  and  indeed  the 
only,  street,  I  caught  sight  of  the  words,  "  Grocer, 
Chemist,  Tobacconist,  Draper,  and  Circulating  Li- 
brary." It  would  be  ungracious,  I  felt,  to  let  such 
versatility  go  unrecognized.  Besides,  one  might  as 
well  take  a  novel  or  two  out  with  one  in  the  boat. 
It  might  make  the  intervals  between  the  bites  seem 
a  little  shorter.     So  in  I  went. 

A  young  girl  with  a  pigtail  escorted  me  past  the 
Quaker  Oats  and  the  Gold  Flakes,  under  a  little 

259 


Books  in  General 

low  doorway  and  into  a  back  room.  "  A  shilling 
deposit,  and  twopence  on  each  book,"  she  said;  and 
left  me  to  the  shelves.  There  were  books  there  all 
right:  about  two  thousand  of  them,  reaching  from 
floor  to  ceiling  on  both  sides.  There  was  no  sort 
of  order,  alphabetical  or  otherwise,  so  it  was  no 
good  expecting  to  find  a  particular  author  right  off. 
The  only  thing  for  it  was  beginning  somewhere  and 
going  steadily  along  the  rows. 

B.  M.  Croker:  yes,  I  think  I  read  a  great  many 
of  hers  in  my  youth.  They  were  about  penniless 
young  ladies  going  to  India  and  getting  married. 
It  is  no  good  tackling  this  one.  The  Gateless  Bar- 
rier, by  Lucas  Malet;  that  was  about  spiritualism, 
and  pretty  average  tosh  it  was;  I  shall  probably 
come  to  Sir  RicJiard  Calmady  presently,  but  I  shall 
give  him  a  miss  too.  The  Iron  Pirate:  I  liked  that 
rather,  but  it  would  be  a  pity  not  to  like  it  so  much 
now.  r  feel  the  same  about  Saracinesca,  The  Witch 
of  Prague,  and  In  the  Palace  of  the  King,  which  are 
all  in  a  lump  together  where  some  late  devotee  has 
replaced  them.  Marion  Crawford,  upon  whose 
every  word  my  childhood  hung,  I  dare  not  attempt 
you  again;  even  A  Cigarette  Maker's  Romance  and 
the  chronicle  of  Mr.  Isaacs  (who  enjoyed  Kant  and 
deluded  me,  for  a  time,  into  the  belief  that  I  should 
like  him  too)  will  be  more  dear  to  the  memory  if 
they  are  not  restored  to  sight.  Count  Hannibal: 
that  was  the  man  who  either  massacred  somebody 
260 


Stranded 

or  escaped  massacre  on  St.  Bartholomew's  Day. 
He  had  a  great  square  jaw  and  eyes  that  made  you 
jump;  and  women  cowered  and  obeyed  when  he 
emitted  a  short,  sharp  oath  or  looked  like  emitting 
one.  Wiliam  Black  I  never  liked  at  any  time,  so 
nothing  by  him  need  detain  me.  Flames?  No. 
Dodo?  Oh  dear,  no.  Ships  that  pass  in  the 
Night?  No.  There  was  edelweiss  in  it,  and  an 
old  man  who  was  otherworldly  and  read  nothing  but 
Gibbon.  Queen  Victoria  thought  highly  of  it,  but 
I  don't  want  to  read  it  again.  Nor  Red  Pottage 
either.  The  husband  and  the  other  man  (I  think) 
had  a  duel.  They  drew  straws,  and  the  man  with 
the  shortest  straw  had  to  kill  himself.  What  the 
lady  thought  about  it  I  don't  remember.  But  one  of 
them  was  a  Lord,  New  Zealand  came  in  some- 
where, and  at  suitable  places  in  the  conversation  a 
moth  would  flutter  or  a  kingfisher  flash  by.  It  is  by 
touches  like  these  that  one  can  distinguish  really 
imaginative  literature,  but  I  am  not  tempted. 

It  is  not  reasonable  to  expect  a  man  at  this  date 
to  return  to  A  Yellow  Aster,  or  Moths  by  Ouida. 
As  for  The  Silence  of  Dean  Maitland,  the  predica- 
ment of  that  respected  ecclesiastic  with  the  undis- 
closed sin  on  his  conscience  is  still  fresh  in  my  mind, 
and  I  still  remember  how  my  elders,  when  it  first 
came  out,  debated  whether  such  a  book  ought  to  be 
written,  and  whether  Maxwell  Gray  was  a  man  or 
a  woman.     Of  The  Sorrows  of  Satan  I  recall  little 

261 


Books  in  General 

of  the  plot,  except  that  the  Devil  was  a  gentleman. 
I  think  that  the  first  sentences  were :  "  Do  you  know 
what  it  is  to  be  poor?  Not  with  that  —  poverty 
that —  on  ten  thousand  a  year,  but  with  that  grind- 
ing poverty  that,"  etc.  How  many  years  ago  is  it 
since  that  immortal  paragraph,  reproduced  in  fac- 
simile from  the  author's  own  script,  appeared  in  the 
Strand  Magazine,  with  pictures  of  the  great  novelist 
in  divers  postures?  It  would  be  Ethel  M.  Dell  now, 
I  suppose;  but  they  don't  seem  to  keep  Miss  Dell's 
works  in  this  Circulating  Library,  of  which  the  cir- 
culation seems  to  have  stopped  many,  many,  many 
years  since.  They  keep  instead  Frankfort  Moore 
and  G.  B.  Burgin. 

Anthony  Hope  now.  Here  is  The  Intrusions  of 
Peggy.  There  was  a  grizzled  inventor  who  lived 
in  the  Temple,  and  he  had  a  daughter  (  ?)  who  shone 
like  a  sunbeam  amidst  the  dusty  shades  of  the  law. 
Anthony  Hope,  who  was  very  nearly  a  first-rate 
writer,  must  have  put  it  better  than  that;  but  I'm 
sure  that  that  is  what  it  was  about.  Seton  Merri- 
man  now.  This  is  better.  But  will  or  will  not  a 
reperusal  of  The  Vultures  and  Roden's  Corner 
diminish  the  respect  that  still  survives  in  me  for  him? 
He  gave  me  immense  pleasure  at  one  time;  can  I  risk 
it?     I  don't  know. 

With  meditations  like  the  above  I  roamed  up 
and  down  before  the  frayed  and  wrinkled  backs  of 
262 


Stranded 

these  veterans,  fascinated  by  so  systematic  a  recovery 
of  the  familiar.  Then  I  remembered  that  the  sun 
was  shining  in  a  blue  sky,  only  slightly  fleeced  with 
cloud;  that  the  salt  wind  blowing  shoreward  was 
driving  broken  sunlight  over  the  waves;  that  there 
were  as  good  fish  in  the  sea  as  ever  came  out  of  it; 
and  that  I  must  really  take  care  of  my  health. 
Catching  sight  of  She  and  Many  Cargoes,  which  I 
have  read  at  least  ten  times  apiece,  but  am  always 
good  for  again,  I  detached  them  from  their  faded 
companions  and  took  them  into  the  front  shop, 
meditating  upon  the  astonishing  sluggishness  of  this 
shop,  where  even  Mrs.  Barclay  had  not  yet  pene- 
trated and  Garvice  was  a  cloudy  speculation  in  the 
far  future. 

I  paid  my  one-and-fourpence  and  stepped  out  on 
to  the  cobblestones.  As  I  passed  into  the  sun,  it 
occurred  to  me  that  it  was  not  surprising  that  even 
the  minor  works  in  the  library  were  like  old  friends. 
For  —  and  things  like  these  do  strangely  remain 
known,  yet  for  a  time,  unrelated  —  I  spent  a  sum- 
mer in  this  village  fifteen  years  ago. 


263 


Mr.  Ralph  Hodgson 

MR.  RALPH  HODGSON  is  a  poet  who  has 
still  not  quite  got  his  due.  He  has  just 
collected  into  one  volume  (Poems),  with 
a  few  others,  the  verses  published  in  a  series  of 
"  Flying  Fame  Booklets  "  with  Mr.  Lovat  Fraser's 
charming  and  ingenious  cuts.  Ten  years'  work  goes 
into  seventy  pages,  so  that  a  charge  of  over-pro- 
duction is  scarcely  possible.  In  the  circumstances 
Mr.  Hodgson  might  have  included  one  or  two 
poems.  The  Last  Blackbird,  for  example,  from  his 
earlier  book.  That  book  as  a  whole,  however,  was 
not  comparable  with  this,  which  contains  The  Bull, 
indubitably  one  of  the  finest  poems  of  our  generation, 
The  Song  of  Honour,  which  is  almost  as  good,  and 
many  charming  lighter  lyrics.  Eve,  particularly,  is 
a  feat.  Mr.  Hodgson  makes  a  delicate  tripping 
song  out  of  the  Fall  of  Man;  he  pictures  Eve,  "  that 
orchard  sprite," 

JVondering,  listening, 
Listening,  wondering. 
Eve  with  a  berry 
Half-way  to  her  lips, 

and  the  serpent,  a  graceful  beast, 
264 


Mr.  Ralph  Hodgson 

Tumbling  in  twenty  rings 
Into  the  grass. 

The  whole  story  trips  like  that. 

"  Eva!  "  Each  syllable 
Light  as  a  flower  fell, 
"  Eva!  "  he  whispered  the 
Wondering  maid, 
Soft  as  a  bubble  sung 
Out  of  a  linnet's  lung. 
Soft  and  most  silverly 
"  Eva!  "  he  said. 

But —  and  this  is  the  achievement  —  one  is  not  left 
with  a  sense  of  inadequacy  and  triviality.  For  the 
feeling  throughout  is  sincere,  and  the  nature  of  the 
calamity  is  conveyed  as  clearly  by  Mr.  Hodgson, 
who  makes  the  small  birds  chatter  with  sorrow  and 
indignation  when  Eve  falls,  as  it  would  have  been 
by  another  man  with  all  the  paraphernalia  of  dark- 
ening heavens,  thunderous  voices,  and  long  Latin 
words. 

But  this  poem  is  not  on  the  same  plane  as  The 
^Bull  and  The  Song  of  Honour.  No  writer  has 
ever  entered  more  completely  into  the  feelings  of 
an  animal  than  does  Mr.  Hodgson  as,  in  a  setting 
of  tropical  forest  and  swamp,  he  shows  the  defeated, 
expelled,  and  dying  leader  of  the  herd  remembering 

265 


Books  in  General 

his  calfhood,  and  his  early  fights,  and  his  prowess 
and  his  final  fall,  whilst  the  obscene  birds  circle 
round  overhead  waiting  for  his  death.  The  Song 
of  Honour,  an  attempt  to  echo  the  Hymn  of  Praise 
sung  by  all  things  to  their  Maker,  is,  in  the  nature 
of  things,  more  disjointed  and  impressionistic,  less 
exact  and  well-shaped.  It  owes  as  much  as  any 
poem  can  decently  owe  to  another  to  Christopher 
Smart's  Song  to  David.  But  the  strength  of  feeling 
never  fails,  and  parts  of  the  breathless  paean  are 
very  beautiful. 

The  music  of  a  lion  strong 

That  shakes  a  hill  a  whole  night  long, 

'/I  hill  as  loud  as  he, 

The  twitter  of  a  mouse  among 

Melodious  greenery. 

The  ruby's  and  the  rainbow's  song. 

The  nightingale's  —  all  three. 

The  song  of  life  that  wells  and  flows 

From  every  leopard,  lark  and  rose 

And  everything  that  gleams  or  goes 

Lack-lustre  in  the  sea. 

I  heard  it  all,  I  heard  the  whole 
Harmonious  hymn  of  being  roll 
Up  through  the  chapel  of  my  soul 
And  at  the  altar  die. 
And  in  the  awful  quiet  then 
Myself  I  heard.  Amen,  Amen, 
266 


Mr.  Ralph  Hodgson 

Amen  I  heard  me  cry! 

I  heard  it  all  and  then  although 

I  caught  my  flying  senses,  Oh, 

A  dizzy  man  was  If 

I  stood  and  stared;  the  sky  was  lit, 

The  sky  was  stars  all  over  it, 

I  stood,  I  knew  not  why, 

Without  a  wish,  without  a  will, 

I  stood  upon  that  silent  hill 

And  stared  into  the  sky  until 

My  eyes  were  blind  with  stars  and  still 

I  stared  into  the  sky. 

Those  are  two  of  the  last  stanzas,  and  even  standing 
alone,  I  think,  give  something  of  the  quality  of  the 
poem.  They  certainly  are  characteristic  in  the  sim- 
plicity of  their  language. 


267 


Double  Misprints 


I 


TAKE  the  following  paragraph  from  the  Con- 
nersville  (Ind.)  Herald: 


"  The  Guest  Day  meeting  of  the  literary  club  will 
be  held  at  the  home  of  Mrs.  L.  A.  Frazer  to-morrow 
afternoon.  Mrs.  De  Morgan  Jones,  of  Indian- 
apolis, will  lecture  on  "  William  Butler  Meats  and 
the  Garlic  Revival." 

I  think  the  Lady  of  Shalott  should  have  been 
brought  in.  Double  misprints  are  rare,  but  I  re- 
member another  which  also  was  perpetrated  in 
America  but  which  has  not  quite  so  convincing  an 
air  of  sheer  accident  as  this  one.  A  Colonel,  who 
had  fought  in  the  Civil  War,  was  described  in  his 
local  paper  as  *'  a  battle-scared  veteran."  This 
imputation  on  his  courage  brought  him  to  the  office 
with  a  big  stick  and  a  demand  that  the  paragraph 
should  be  reprinted  with  the  offensive  remark  cor- 
rected. It  was:  but  another  misprint  crept  in  and 
the  word  appeared  as  "  bottle-scarred."  Every  one 
who  has  dealings  with  the  Press  occasionally  cor- 
rects, amid  the  mass  of  quite  meaningless  "  literals," 
a  misprint  that  really  makes  some  sort  of  sense. 
268 


Double  Misprints 

I  myself  in  the  last  few  months  have  had  to  emend 
printers'  references  to  Mr.  Hotairio  Bottomley  and 
Mr.  Edmund  Goose.  The  former  one  felt  tempted 
to  leave  uncorrected,  the  derangement  of  letters  be- 
ing so  extremely  apt. 


269 


The  History  of  Earl  Fumbles 

THE  late  Earl  (Eorl?)  Fumbles  was  of  lowly 
birth.  He  was  born  in  the  thorp  of  Stoke 
Parva  in  1850,  the  son  of  a  penniless 
timber-wright.  Outdriven  from  his  first  school,  he 
became  a  fighting-man.  He  was  a  dreadless  and 
fearnought  wight,  and  was  once  left  for  dead  on  the 
field,  bleeding  at  every  sweat-hole.  The  saw-bones 
brought  him  through.  Coming  back  to  England  he 
saw  the  haplihood  of  making  a  gold-hoard  in  the 
soap-trade.  He  set  up  a  business  with  the  gold  of 
others;  got  rid  of  his  yoke-mates  by  sundry  under- 
slinkings,  and  soon  became  amazingly  wealthy.  An 
earldom  followed;  though  it  is  markworthy  that  on 
the  morning  after  its  bestowal  a  great  songsmith 
wrote  to  the  Daily  Score  to  say ;  '  The  Gusher  of 
Fair-Name  is  befouled.'  In  19 10  Lord  Fumbles 
went  as  sendling  to  the  King  of  Siam,  with  a  bode- 
word  from  our  King.  In  the  back-end  of  the  next 
year  his  health  gave  out;  he  became  bit-wise  worse; 
and  he  died  last  night  of  belly-ache.  Lord  Fumbles 
was  often  to  be  seen  at  Sir  Henry  Wood's  Out-Road 
Glee-Motes  at  Queen's  Hall,  but  he  was  almost  a 
comeling  at  the  House  of  Lords.  He  was  cunning 
in  Kin-lore,  and  in  his  fair  wonestead  at  Fumbles 
270 


The  History  of  Earl  Fumbles 

wrote  a  great  book  on  the  stem-tree  of  his  kin.  By 
ill  hap  he  was  an  eat-all  and  rather  soaksome.  He 
will  be  buried  on  Wednesday  in  the  bone-yard  at 
Fumbles,  in  which  lich-rest  his  wife  already  lies. 
The  earldom  goes,  by  out-of-the-way  odd-come-short, 
to  his  daughter." 

This  little  biography  may  have  puzzled  those 
who  have  got  tKus  far.  They  may  have  thought 
it  absurd.  I  compiled  it  with  the  help  of 
"  C.  L.  D.'s  "  Word-Book  of  the  English  Tongue, 
just  published  by  Routledge.  "  C.  L.  D."  (the 
initials  are,  I  observe,  those  of  the  author  of  Alice 
in  W onderland)\s  one  of  those  enthusiasts  who  long 
"  to  shake  off  the  Norman  yoke  "  which  lies  so 
heavy  on  our  speech.  He  follows,  that  is  to  say, 
in  the  footsteps  of  the  late  Riev.  William  Barnes 
{oi  I>orset),  who  asked  his  countrymen  to  call  a 
perambulator  a  "  child-wain "  and  an  omnibus  a 
"  folk-wain."  '*  What  many  speakers  and  writers," 
Ke  remarks,  "  even  to-day,  call  English,  is  no  English 
at  all  but  sheer  French.  Nevertheless,  there  are 
many  who  feel  not  a  little  ashamed  of  the  needless 
loan-words  in  which  their  speech  is  clothed,  and  of 
the  borrowed  feathers  in  which  they  strut.  Over 
and  over  again  it  has  been  said,  and  most  truly,  that 
for  liveliness  and  strength,  manliness  and  fulness  of 
meaning,  the  olden  English  Tongue  were  hard  to 
beat."  "  In  this  little  Word-Book,  therefore,"  he 
says: 

271 


Books  in  General 

"  after  having  chosen  a  few  thousand  stock  loan- 
words, I  have  striven  to  set  by  the  side  of  each, 
not  indeed  '  synonyms,'  but  other  good  English 
words,  which  may  stand  in  their  stead." 

Which  is  certainly  (or,  I  thinlc  I  should  say,  "  ywis  " 
or  "  in  good  sooth")   a  pure  English  sentence. 

One  primary  fault  "  C.  L.  D."  avoids  almost  en- 
tirely. He  does  not  (as  he  might  have  done  had 
he  cared  to  take  all  the  astonishing  Latin  words 
from  Johnson's  Word-Book)  load  the  dice  by  in- 
cluding in  his  list  of  "  loan-words  "  words  which  we 
hardly  ever  use.  There  are  a  few.  Only  a  scientist 
would  say  "  acephalous  "  when  he  meant  *'  head- 
less " ;  and  the  general  public  does  not  need  to  be 
warned  to  say  "  grind,"  "  bristly,"  "  stalkless,"  and 
"  barefooted,"  instead  of  "  comminute,"  "  aristate," 
"  acaulescent,"  and  "  discalced."  It  would  never 
dream  of  saying  acaulescent.  Where  our  author 
errs  is  where  he  would  inevitably  err:  in  suggest- 
ing to  us  ( I )  Saxon  words  which  we  simply 
won't  use,  and  (2)  Saxon  words  which  do  not  take 
the  place  of  the  Latin  words  of  which  he  disap- 
proves. Take,  for  instance,  as  an  instance  of  the 
latter  category,  this  very  word  "  disapprove."  All 
he  can  give  us  is  a  list  of  "  strong  "  words  beginning 
with  "  hiss  "  and  "  hoot,"  none  of  which  gets  the 
exact  shade  of  meaning  required.  Similarly  with 
272 


The  History  of  Earl  Fumbles 

"  decry,"  for  which  his  suggestions  are  "  boo  "  and 
"  hoot."  In  suggesting  "  clean,"  "  flat,"  etc.,  for 
*'  absolute  "  he  is  merely  booing  and  hooting  the 
slang  use  of  that  word,  but  he  has  not  found  a 
Saxon  equivalent  for  the  real  "  absolute."  For 
"  complimentary  "  he  gives  "  smooth-spoken  " ;  but 
how  would,  say,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  like 
to  get  a  letter  of  thanks  beginning:  "  My  dear 
Archbishop, —  Many  thanks  for  your  very  smooth- 
spoken remarks  "  ?  For  "  uncomfortable  "  he  can 
only  suggest  writhing  " —  as  though  we  could  say 
that  we  had  spent  a  fortnight  in  a  most  writhing 
hotel;  and  for  "  temporalities"  he  has  nothing  but 
"loaves  and  fishes" — which  is  simply  offensive. 
If  one  began  using  words  like  these  promiscuously, 
one  would  simply  (here  I  consult  the  fVord-Book 
again)  be  asking  for  misluck. 

To  turn  to  the  other  lot,  it  is  altogether  too  late 
to  ask  us  to  say  "  rede-craft  "  for  "  logic  ";  "  back- 
jaw  "  for  "  retort  ";  "  handmaid  "  for  "  servant  "; 
"  outganger  "  for  "emigrant";  "  wanhope  "  (a 
most  beautiful  word,  I  admit)  for  "despair"; 
"scald"  or  "songsmith"  for  "poet";  "  hight " 
or  "yclept"  for  "denominated";  "  uplooking " 
for  "  aspiring  " ;  "  fourwinkled  "  for  "  quadrangu- 
lar"; and,  above  all,  to  replace  "depilatory"  by 
"hair-bane."  "  Ereold "  and  "  foreold "  for 
"  ancient  "  are  no  longer  possible;  and  the  man  who 

273 


Books  in  General 

should  say  that  the  King  was  crowned  and  be- 
smeared in  Westminster  Abbey  would  be  quite  un- 
able to  persuade  people  that  he  wasn't  merely  a 
rather  coarse  satirist.  In  cases  where  both  terms 
are  alive,  the  Latin  is  often  more  convenient  —  be- 
cause shorter  —  than  the  Saxon.  If  we  always  used 
"  breach  of  wedlock  "  instead  of  *'  adultery,"  many 
modern  novels,  and  most  Sunday  newspapers,  would 
use  up  twice  as  much  paper  and  ink.  (There  was 
once  a  half-way  word:  the  mediaeval  heralds  used 
to  say  that  the  leopard  was  "  begotten  in  spouse- 
breach  between  the  lion  and  the  pard.")  In  pro- 
posing "  hand-grip "  for  portmanteau,  our  word- 
loresman  is  doing  an  audacious  thing:  adopting  a  bit 
of  modern  American  —  though,  as  often  as  not,  the 
term  is  shortened,  across  the  water,  to  "  grip  "  tout 
court. 

There  remain,  of  course,  a  very  large  number  of 
words  for  which  "  C.  L.  D."  does  provide  genuine 
living  synonyms  which,  in  many  cases,  are  stronger 
and  terser  than  the  originals.  Even  here,  of  course, 
there  are  occasional  difficulties;  we  have,  at  any  rate 
in  print,  thrown  over  "  C.  L.  D.'s "  favourites 
"  belly-ache  "  and  "  gripes  "  in  favour  of  "  colic  " 
simply  because  they  are  what  is  called  "  good  sturdy 
Saxon,"  altogether  too  apt  and  sturdy.  As  for  his 
proposal  of  "  ropes  "  and  "  manifolds  "  for  "  intes- 
tines," all  I  can  say  is  that  I  much  prefer  here  to 
remain  under  the  Norman  yoke.  At  the  same  time, 
too  much  Latinity  is  a  nuisance  and  a  danger  to  the 
274 


The  History  of  Earl  Fumbles 

vividness  of  our  tongue ;  and,  whilst  refraining  from 
following  "  C.  L.  D."  to  his  thorps  or  Barnes  to  his 
folk-wain,  I  think  I  shall  sometimes  find  the  Word- 
Book  useful. 


275 


On  Destroying  Books 


I 


"^  T  says  in  the  paper  "  that  over  two  million  vol- 
umes have  been  presented  to  the  troops  by  the 
public.  It  would  be  interesting  to  inspect 
them.  Most  of  them,  no  doubt,  are  quite  ordinary 
and  suitable;  but  it  was  publicly  stated  the  other  day 
that  some  people  were  sending  the  oddest  things, 
such  as  magazines  twenty  years  old,  guides  to  the 
Lake  District,  Bradshaws,  and  back  numbers  of 
JVhitaker's  Almanack.  In  some  cases,  one  imagines, 
such  indigestibles  get  into  the  parcels  by  accident; 
but  it  is  likely  that  there  are  those  who  jump  at  the 
opportunity  of  getting  rid  of  books  they  don't  want. 
Why  have  kept  them  if  they  don't  want  them?  But 
most  people,  especially  non-bookish  people,  are  very 
reluctant  to  throw  away  anything  that  looks  like  a 
book.  In  the  most  illiterate  houses  that  one  knows 
every  worthless  or  ephemeral  volume  that  is  bought 
finds  its  way  to  a  shelf  and  stays  there.  In  reality 
it  is  not  merely  absurd  to  keep  rubbish  merely  be- 
cause it  is  printed:  it  is  positively  a  public  duty  to 
destroy  it.  Destruction  not  merely  makes  more 
room  for  new  books  and  saves  one's  heirs  the  trouble 
of  sorting  out  the  rubbish  or  storing  it:  it  may  also 
prevent  posterity  from  making  a  fool  of  itself.  We 
276 


On  Destroying  Books 

may  be  sure  that  If  we  do  not  burn,  sink,  or  blast  all 
the  superseded  editions  of  Bradshaw,  two  hundred 
years  hence  some  collector  will  be  specializing  in  old 
railway  time-tables,  gathering,  at  immense  cost,  a 
complete  series,  and  ultimately  leaving  his  "  treas- 
ures "  (as  the  Press  will  call  them)  to  a  Public  Insti- 
tution. 

But  it  is  not  always  easy  to  destroy  books.  They 
may  not  have  as  many  lives  as  a  cat,  but  they  cer- 
tainly die  hard;  and  it  is  sometimes  difficult  to  find 
a  scaffold  for  them.  This  difficulty  once  brought 
me  almost  within  the  Shadow  of  the  Rope.  I  was 
living  in  a  small  and  (as  Shakespeare  would  say) 
heaven-kissing  flat  in  Chelsea,  and  books  of  inferior 
minor  verse  gradually  accumulated  there  until  at  last 
I  was  faced  with  the  alternative  of  either  evicting 
the  books  or  else  leaving  them  in  sole,  undisturbed 
tenancy  and  taking  rooms  elsewhere  for  myself. 
Now,  no  one  would  have  bought  these  books.  I 
therefore  had  to  throw  them  away  or  wipe  them 
off  the  map  altogether.  But  how?  There  were 
scores  of  them.  I  had  no  kitchen  range,  and  I  could 
not  toast  them  on  the  gas-cooker  or  consume  them 
leaf  by  leaf  in  my  small  study  fire  —  for  it  is  almost 
as  hopeless  to  try  to  burn  a  book  without  opening  it 
as  to  try  to  burn  a  piece  of  granite.  I  had  no  dust- 
bin; my  debris  went  down  a  kind  of  flue  behind  the 
staircase,  with  small  trap-doors  opening  to  the  land- 
ings.    The  difficulty  with  this  was  that  the  larger 

277 


Books  in  General 

books  might  choke  it;  the  authorities,  in  fact,  had 
labelled  it  "  Dust  and  Ashes  Only  " ;  and  in  any 
case  I  did  not  want  to  leave  the  books  intact,  and 
some  dustman's  unfortunate  family  to  get  a  false 
idea  of  English  poetry  from  them.  So  in  the  end 
I  determined  to  do  to  them  what  so  many  people 
do  to  the  kittens :  tie  them  up  and  consign  them  to 
the  river.  I  improvised  a  sack,  stuffed  the  books 
into  it,  put  it  over  my  shoulder,  and  went  down 
the  stairs  into  the  darkness. 

It  was  nearly  midnight  as  I  stepped  into  the  street. 
There  was  a  cold  nip  in  the  air;  the  sky  was  full  of 
stars;  and  the  greenish-yellow  lamps  threw  long 
gleams  across  the  smooth,  hard  road.  Few  people 
were  about;  under  the  trees  at  the  comer  a  Guards- 
man was  bidding  a  robust  good  night  to  his  girl, 
and  here  and  there  rang  out  the  steps  of  solitary 
travellers  making  their  way  home  across  the  bridge 
to  Battersea.  I  turned  up  my  overcoat  collar, 
settled  my  sack  comfortably  across  my  shoulders, 
and  strode  off  towards  the  little  square  glow  of  the 
coffee-stall  which  marked  the  near  end  of  the  bridge, 
whose  sweeping  iron  girders  were  just  visible  against 
the  dark  sky  behind.  A  few  doors  down  I  passed 
a  policeman  who  was  flashing  his  lantern  on  the 
catches  of  basement  windows.  He  turned.  I 
fancied  he  looked  suspicious,  and  I  trembled  slightly. 
The  thought  occurred  to  me :  "  Perhaps  he  suspects 
278 


On  Destroying  Books 

I  have  swag  in  this  sack."  I  was  not  seriously  dis- 
turbed, as  I  knew  that  I  could  bear  investigation, 
and  that  nobody  would  be  suspected  of  having  stolen 
such  goods  (though  they  were  all  first  editions)  as 
I  was  carrying.  Nevertheless  I  could  not  help  the 
slight  unease  which  comes  to  all  who  are  eyed  sus- 
piciously by  the  police,  and  to  all  who  are  detected 
in  any  deliberately  furtive  act,  however  harmless. 
He  acquitted  me,  apparently;  and,  with  a  step  that, 
making  an  effort,  I  prevented  from  growing  more 
rapid,  I  walked  on  until  I  reached  the  Embankment. 
It  was  then  that  all  the  implications  of  my  act 
revealed  themselves.  I  leaned  against  the  parapet 
and  looked  down  into  the  faintly  luminous  swirls  of 
the  river.  Suddenly  I  heard  a  step  near  me ;  quite 
automatically  I  sprang  back  from  the  wall  and  began 
walking  on  with,  I  fervently  hoped,  an  air  of  rumina- 
tion and  unconcern.  The  pedestrian  came  by  me 
without  looking  at  me.  It  was  a  tramp,  who  had 
other  things  to  think  about;  and,  calling  myself  an 
ass,  I  stopped  again.  "  Now's  for  it,"  I  thought; 
but  just  as  I  was  preparing  to  cast  my  books  upon 
the  waters  I  heard  another  step  —  a  slow  and  meas- 
ured one.  The  next  thought  came  like  a  blaze  of 
terrible  blue  lightning  across  my  brain :  "  What  about 
the  splash?  "  A  man  leaning  at  midnight  over  the 
Embankment  wall:  a  sudden  fling  of  his  arms:  a 
great  splash  in  the  water.  Surely,  and  not  without 
reason,  whoever  was  within  sight  and  hearing  (and 

279 


Books  in  General 

there  always  seemed  to  be  some  one  near)  would 
at  once  rush  at  me  and  seize  me.  In  all  probability 
they  would  think  it  was  a  baby.  What  on  earth 
would  be  the  good  of  telling  a  London  constable 
that  I  had  come  out  into  the  cold  and  stolen  down 
alone  to  the  river  to  get  rid  of  a  pack  of  poetry? 
I  could  almost  hear  his  gruff,  sneering  laugh;  "  You 
tell  that  to  the  Marines,  my  son!  " 

So  for  I  do  not  know  how  long  I  strayed  up  and 
down,  increasingly  fearful  of  being  watched,  sum- 
moning up  my  courage  to  take  the  plunge  and  quail- 
ing from  it  at  the  last  moment.  At  last  I  did  it.  In 
the  middle  of  Chelsea  Bridge  there  are  projecting 
circular  bays  with  seats  in  them.  In  an  agony  of 
decision  I  left  the  Embankment  and  hastened 
straight  for  the  first  of  these.  When  I  reached  it 
I  knelt  on  the  seat.  Looking  over,  I  hesitated  again. 
But  I  had  reached  the  turning-point.  "  What  I  "  I 
thought  savagely,  "  under  the  resolute  mask  that  you 
show  your  friends  is  there  really  a  shrinking  and 
contemptible  coward?  If  you  fail  now,  you  must 
never  hold  your  head  up  again.  Anyhow,  what  if 
you  are  hanged  for  it?  Good  God !  you  worm,  bet- 
ter men  than  you  have  gone  to  the  gallows !  "  With 
the  courage  of  despair  I  took  a  heave.  The  sack 
dropped  sheer.  A  vast  splash.  Then  silence  fell 
again.  No  one  came.  I  turned  home;  and  as  I 
walked  I  thought  a  little  sadly  of  all  those  books 
falling  into  that  cold  torrent,  settling  slowly  down 
280 


On  Destroying  Books 

through  the  pitchy  dark,  and  subsiding  at  last  on  the 
ooze  of  the  bottom,  there  to  lie  forlorn  and  forgot- 
ten whilst  the  unconscious  world  of  men  went  on. 

Horrible  bad  books,  poor  innocent  books,  you  are 
lying  there  still;  covered,  perhaps,  with  mud  by  this 
time,  with  only  a  stray  rag  of  your  sacking  sticking 
out  of  the  slime  into  the  opaque  brown  tides.  Odes 
to  Diana,  Sonnets  to  Ethel,  Dramas  on  the  Love  of 
Lancelot,  Stanzas  on  a  First  Glimpse  of  Venice,  you 
lie  there  in  a  living  death,  and  your  fate  is  perhaps 
worse  than  you  deserved.  I  was  harsh  with  you. 
I  am  sorry  I  did  it.  But  even  if  I  had  kept  you,  I 
will  certainly  say  this:  I  should  not  have  sent  you 
to  the  soldiers. 


THE    END 


28l 


s^^^. 


3C 
68- 


UC  SOUTHERN  aE3'0N^ 


A    000  691  860     1 


